Determination of the composition of sialoliths composed of carbonate apatite and albumin using artificial neural networks

The determination of the components of the sialoliths is important both from the point of view of chances for a successful medical treatment of the patients and because the prevention of further re-occurrence of sialolithiasis depends upon the knowledge of the nature of the constituents of the concrements. Despite the fact that infrared spectroscopy is widely used for the determination of the composition of sialoliths, urinary calculi and bladder stones, we found no data for any chemometric method developed for such purposes. Here, a method is presented for quantitative determination of the content of salivary calculi composed of albumin and carbonate apatite (one of the most often found constituents in the analyzed calculi from the patients from Macedonia) using artificial neural networks (ANN). The results were checked on real samples using the standard addition method. The precision of the method was estimated using the relative standard deviation, which shows that it is suitable for routine analysis. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.