Identification of Chemical Component of Gallstones using FT-IR Spectroscopy, SEM and EDS in Al-Nasiriya City, South of Iraq

Abstract

This study focus on the identification the chemical component of gallstones obtained from 66 patients, 57female and 9 male. Range 19 to 55 years (2 patients above 70), the gallstones were removed during surgical operations at Al-hussain hospital (Al-Nasiriya city) using FTIR spectroscopic method. The identification shows four main kinds of gallstones found in patients, were identified as pure cholesterol (30.30%), pure calcium bilirubinate(15.15%), cholesterol mixed with calcium bilirubinate (47%) and cholesterol mixed with calcium carbonate(7.57%) gallstones. Incidence of gallstones was higher in age between 20 and 50 years. The majority of gallstones were removed from the female than male 6.33:1. Also, in this work, Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS) were applied for a study of the morphological structure and determination of major and trace element composition of gallstone samples.