Features and Element Distribution of Cervical Precancerous Cells on Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope and Energy Dispersive X-Ray

Authors

  • Yessi Jusman et al.

Abstract

To investigate the features of the surface topographic microstructure and to perform elemental distribution on cervical cells, Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy and Energy Dispersive X-Ray (FE-SEM/EDX) were employed to capture and scan the cells. After capturing the specific cervical cells image, the scanning of specific cells surface area was conducted. The FE-SEM/EDX was set to 10 kV for capturing the image and then element scanning was conducted for 60 seconds. To re-identify the chemical composition of the samples, Attenuated Total Reflection and Fourier Transform Infrared (ATR/FTIR) spectroscopy was used to validate the FE-SEM/EDX results. The detected elemental distribution of the cervical cell area exhibited higher amounts of Carbon (C), Oxygen (O), and Sodium (Na), Calcium (Ca) elements as well as traces of amounts of Nitrogen (N), Magnesium (Mg), and Aluminium (Al). The observed elements appeared in different amounts as well as different cell classes in 350 cervical cells areas. The element results were observed to check their similarity with the FTIR results. FE-SEM/EDX and FTIR results, respectively, were used as features to differentiate normal, Low-grade Intra-Epithelial Squamous Lesion (LSIL), and High-grade Intra-Epithelial Squamous Lesion (HSIL) classes. The FE-SEM/EDX achieved good classification results which were similar to the FTIR classification results. The FE-SEM/EDX provided useful information on the microstructural characteristics and spatial distribution of elements on the surface of human cervical cancer cells.

Published

2020-03-31

Issue

Section

Articles