Affiliations: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Vanderbilt
University, Nashville, TN, USA | CHOC Research Institute, Children's Hospital of Orange
County, Orange, CA, USA | Biophotonics Research Group and Department of
Pathology, Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, Gloucester, Gloucestershire,
UK | Division of Dermatology, Vanderbilt University Medical
Center, Nashville, TN, USA | Tri-State Women's Health, Florence, KY, USA
Note: [] Corresponding author. Department of Biomedical Engineering,
Vanderbilt University, Station B, Box 351631, Nashville, TN 37235, USA. Tel.:
+1 615 343 4787; Fax: +1 615 343 7919; E-mail:
[email protected]
Abstract: Epithelial cancers, including those of the skin and cervix, are the
most common type of cancers in humans. Many recent studies have attempted to
use Raman spectroscopy to diagnose these cancers. In this paper, Raman spectral
markers related to the temporal and spatial effects of cervical and skin
cancers are examined through four separate but related studies. Results from a
clinical cervix study show that previous disease has a significant effect on
the Raman signatures of the cervix, which allow for near 100% classification
for discriminating previous disease versus a true normal. A Raman
microspectroscopy study showed that Raman can detect changes due to adjacent
regions of dysplasia or HPV that cannot be detected histologically, while a
clinical skin study showed that Raman spectra may be detecting malignancy
associated changes in tissues surrounding nonmelanoma skin cancers. Finally,
results of an organotypic raft culture study provided support for both the skin
and the in vitro cervix results. These studies add to the growing body of
evidence that optical spectroscopy, in this case Raman spectral markers, can be
used to detect subtle temporal and spatial effects in tissue near cancerous
sites that go otherwise undetected by conventional histology.
