RESEARCH ARTICLE Elemental Composition of Gallstone by DC Arc Optical Emission Spectroscopy Shuchi Srivastava • Pavitra Tandon • Renu Singh • H. C. Gupta • K. N. Uttam Received: 1 August 2012 / Revised: 4 October 2012 / Accepted: 3 April 2013 Ó The National Academy of Sciences, India 2013 Abstract The elemental composition of cholesterol stone has been determined by the DC arc optical emission spectroscopy. Qualitative analysis of gallstone reveals the presence of various elements such as Na, Ca, Mg, Cu, Fe, Si, Ni, Al, V, Tl, Sb, H, Li, and K with varying concen- tration. Apart from Ca being the dominant element, other elements like Na, K, Cu, Mg, and Si are seen to be present in significant proportions. Attempts are being made to systematically investigate the distribution of metallic ele- ments in gallstone and correlate them with the disease conditions. Keywords: Optical microscopy Á DC arc spectroscopy Á Mineral elements Á Cholesterol gallstone Introduction Gallstones disease is a complex health problem in which environmental, dietary, geographical, demographic and genetic factors contribute [1, 2]. Gallstones have different compositions, colors and sizes and are classified into three categories namely Cholesterol stone (These gallstones are mainly composed of [ 70 % of cholesterol by weight and are in white and yellow colors.), Mixed stone (They con- tain cholesterol, calcium bilirubinate and palmitate phos- phate in different proportion and are chocolaty red in color.), and Pigment stone (This type of gallstones com- prise calcium bilirubinate, calcium biliverdinate and cal- cium salts with \ 10 % cholesterol by weight and are brown and black in color.) [3, 4]. The composition of every type of gallstones is cholesterol (anhydrous cholesterol, cholesterol monohydrate and cholesterol II), calcium car- bonate (vaterite, aragonite and calcite), calcium palmitate, calcium phosphate (apatite and whitlockite) and others (amorphous material, sodium chloride, unidentified mate- rial) [5]. The formation of gallstones involves various processes from nucleation to consolidation of insoluble substance in gallbladder. Gallbladder absorbs water, sodium and concentrates the bile. The determination of major, minor and trace elements in gallstones may give information about the formation of gallstones. Analysis of chemical composition of gallstones can give information about pathogenesis of gallstones [6–8]. The deficiency or abundance of metallic elements give rise many clinical and pathological disorders in animals and humans [9]. Despite decades of researches, the mechanism of gallstone forma- tion remains incompletely understood. The removal of the gallbladder by surgical methods is the only solution to the disease today. Several techniques like Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA), Proton Induced X-Ray Emission (PIXE), Energy Dispersive X-Ray Fluorescence (EDXRF), Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP- AES), Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (AAS), Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS), Laser Ablation Mass Spectrometry (LAMS), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), and Fourier Transform Raman Spectroscopy (FT-Raman) have been used by var- ious workers [10–23] for characterizing numerous biolog- ical materials. In recent years various optical spectroscopic S. Srivastava Á P. Tandon Á R. Singh Á K. N. Uttam (&) Saha’s Spectroscopy Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Allahabad, Allahabad 211002, India e-mail: kailash.uttam@rediffmail.com H. C. Gupta Department of Surgery, Motilal Nehru Medical College, Allahabad 211002, India 123 Natl. Acad. Sci. Lett. DOI 10.1007/s40009-013-0153-z