An extremely rare phosphoglyceride deposition disease is reported. A health
y 62-year-old Japanese woman suffered from tumors that repeatedly appeared
in injured soft tissues for more than 20 years. No immunologic disorders or
abnormal laboratory data were found. Histology showed foreign body granulo
mas consisting of macrophages surrounding yellowish-white crystals. The cry
stals were weakly positive by von Kossa's method, were dissolved in 30% ace
tic acid with gas, and were easily dissolved in 0.1 N NaOH or potassium hyd
roxide, losing their crystal structure. Using a scanning electron microscop
y X-ray microanalyzer, phosphorus and calcium peaks were detected. Phosphog
lycerides were detected by microscopic infrared spectrophotometry and micro
sampling mass spectrometry. The gold hydroxamic acid method for detecting p
hosphoglyceride showed strong positive staining in the crystals. Based on t
he above analyses, the deposited crystals were regarded as phosphoglyceride
, which bound calcium as a counter ion. The crystals tended to be deposited
at sites of injury, where macrophages had accumulated. The patient had rec
eived many injections of a medicine made from alcohol extract from bovine l
iver. We suspect that this medicine was related to the cause of the deposit
ion as the deposition repeatedly appeared at the site of the injections.