[Cutaneous argyria: an electron microscopic study of four eases with microanalysis X study of one case (author's...

This study was done in order to follow the fate of silver in the dermis of chronic argyria. Silver was easily recognizable in the tissue as irregular aggregates of elementary granules round or ovoid in shape, ranging from 30 to 40 mm in size. The microanalysis X showed that the metal was bound with sulfur. In the cases of recent intoxication, the main location of silver was intracellular: the granules were found in the lysosomes as elementary particle or as dense heterogen bodies. In the cases where intoxication had been stopped a long time ago, silver was found either on fibrillar component of the connective tissue or in the basal material of sweat glands. The results show that silver is at first phagocytized by macrophages but this cell is unable to perform complete degradation of the silver salt or metal. Then silver is found on connective fibers where it remains on sulfated glycoproteins.