FT-Raman spectroscopy study for skin cancer diagnosis

Early detection of cancer is still a great challenge in clinical oncology. Recently, Raman spectroscopy has been used for skin lesion detection. FT‒Raman spectroscopy is a modern analytical tool and its use for cancer diagnosis will lead to several advantages for the patient as, for example, real time and less invasive diagnosis. The primary objective of this work was to use FT‒Raman spectroscopy to detect spectral changes between benign and malignant (basal cell carcinoma – BCC) skin tissues. Those spectral changes can provide important information about the biochemical alterations between these two types of tissues. We have analyzed by FT‒Raman eight set of samples histopathologically diagnosed as BCC and made a comparison with five set of samples diagnosed as benign tissue. We have found that the main spectral differences between these samples were in the shift region of 1220–1300 cm–1and 1640–1680 cm–1. The vibration bands in these regions correspond to the amide III and to the amide I vibrations, respectively. Principal components analysis applied over all 13 samples could identify tissue type with 100% of sensitivity and specificity.