Morphological and Chemical Study of Pathological Deposits in Human Aortic and Mitral Valve Stenosis: A Biomineralogical Contribution

Figure 2

PLM analysis of valve nodules. Appearance of nodules of variable dimensions embedded in the valve tissue of a mineralized bicuspid aortic valve (Tv20ab) under transmitted PLM (a, c). (b, d) Under XPL the presence of extinguished zones is indicative of amorphous component. Zones having the typical first-order gray interference color are suggestive for apatite within the nodule. Contact between organic tissue and the epoxy resin was characterized by the presence of anomalous colors due to reaction between the two (b).

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