Use of X-ray microprobe to diagnose bone tissue demineralization after caffeine administration

Abstract

Abstract:Caffeine is a methylxanthine which permeates the placenta. In studies on animals, it has been shown to produce teratogenic and embryotoxic effects in large doses. The objective of this study was to assess the influence of caffeine on the development of bone tissue, with particular reference to elemental bone composition using an X-ray microprobe. The research was conducted on rats. The fertilized females were randomly divided into an experimental and a control group. The experimental group was given caffeine orally in 30 mg/day doses from the 8 th to the 21 st day of pregnancy, while the control group was given water. The fetuses were used to assess the growth and mineralization of the skeleton. On the basis of double dyeing, a qualitative analysis of the bone morphology and mineralization was conducted. For calcium and potassium analysis, an X-ray microprobe was used. In 67 fetuses from the experimental group, changes in skeleton staining with the alcian-alizarin method were noticed. The frequency of the development of variants in the experimental group was statistically higher. In the experimental group, a significant decrease in the calcium level, as well as an increase in the potassium level, was observed. The X-ray microprobe's undoubted advantage is that is offers a quick qualitative and quantitative analysis of the elemental composition of the examined samples. Employing this new technique may furnish us with new capabilities when investigating the essence of the pathology process.

Early postnatal development of the lumbar vertebrae in male Wistar rats: double staining and digital radiological studies

“…However, mineralisation could be also analysed using atomic absorption spectroscopy, but the method is rarely applied since it needs expensive equipment and gives only quantitative results [24]. For a long time it was the only method that allowed direct measurement of various elements concentration, but presently such data can be also obtained with mMR [4] or special X-ray microprobe [28]. On the other hand, usefulness of MR is also limited especially in highly mineralised structures, due to low signal in both principal T1-and T2-weighted images [4].…”

“…Some apparatus allow also examination of skeletal morphology and the method is called a morphometric X-ray absorptiometry [13,28,29]. However, due to incompatibility with pups of small laboratory animals that is a consequence of low resolution power, it has been used only in late postnatal studies or for pups obtained from large laboratory animals, e.g.…”

Caffeine Intake during Pregnancy: What Are the Real Evidences?

“…Caffeine intake is negatively associated with gestational changes in animals, such as lower rates of fertilization and embryonic implantation, low birth and placental weight, greater number of stillbirths, increased expression of apoptotic markers and altered placental and bone formation [9,27,[40][41][42][43][44][45][46] ( Table 1).…”

“…Olchowik and colleagues [45] reported that 30 mg/day of caffeine intake during pregnancy had negative influence in female rats' bone tissue. Tomaszewski and colleagues [41], using X-ray microprobe to examine female rats fetuses treated with 30 mg/day of caffeine, observed that the decreased bone mineralization was dominant in the treated group.…”

The temperature of caffeine administered during pregnancy and foetal morphometric parameters

“…Since then, a number of studies have confirmed the negative effect of high doses of caffeine ingested during pregnancy both for the mother and the developing foetus [2,3,7,15,16,18,22,25,27,30,31].…”