VELLORE: The Christian Medical College Hospital (CMCH) here has become the first medical institution in the country to acquire the Inductively Coupled Mass Spectrometer (ICPMS), a machine capable of analysing the presence of any element (in the Periodic table which has an array of 234 elements) from any sample. The new facility was inaugurated by Vellore Mayor P Karthiyayini on Tuesday.Giving details about the “wonder machine” which has been imported from Germany with special permission from the European Economic Community at a cost of ` Two crore, Dr Selvakumar, Head of the Department of Clinical Biochemistry, said that the analytical services would be offered to patients on a non-profit basis. “From using chemical methods in 1980 to estimate the presence of various metals and upgrading to the first atomic absorption spectrophotometer in 1984, the CMCH has evolved in terms of technology to acquire the new ICPMS, which is capable of analysing elements in any sample including water, soil, nail and hair,” he noted.The machine has the twin purpose of identifying the presence of elements and quantifying them. It would help identify toxic substances in patients who have been exposed to environmental pollution, effectively provide treatment, as well help determine the drug dosage of certain heavy metals such as arsenic that are used as part of cancer treatment. “Measuring the concentration of these elements in the patients would help provide the correct treatment to be initiated,” Selvakumar pointed out, adding that the machine can be customised and calibrated to identify any element in the periodic table.The samples of blood, hair, nails or tissues, are subjected to acid digestion using microwave and pressurised vessels which takes minutes, as compared to the conventional process of using hot plates, which take days to complete the digestion. It is then converted into a fine spray of uniform droplets by a nebuliser which is later subjected into a high-energy argon plasma chamber, which produces heat up to 8,000 degree kelvin. The sample is ionised and directed into a quadrapole mass analyser, where the ions can be separated and the elemental composition determined in five minutes flat.Dr Joe Fleming, a visiting professor from the UK, has received special training from the machine manufacturer and has spent over three months here to calibrate its performance at CMCH. The machine would be a boon to Vellore District, which is heavily polluted by tannery chemicals. It would help identify the various heavy metals present in water, soil, humans and animals and help detect diseases they contract.
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