A New Look into Cancer—A Review on the Contribution of Vibrational Spectroscopy on Early Diagnosis and Surgery Guidance

Abstract

In 2020, approximately 10 million people died of cancer, rendering this disease the second leading cause of death worldwide. Detecting cancer in its early stages is paramount for patients’ prognosis and survival. Hence, the scientific and medical communities are engaged in improving both therapeutic strategies and diagnostic methodologies, beyond prevention. Optical vibrational spectroscopy has been shown to be an ideal diagnostic method for early cancer diagnosis and surgical margins assessment, as a complement to histopathological analysis. Being highly sensitive, non-invasive and capable of real-time molecular imaging, Raman and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopies give information on the biochemical profile of the tissue under analysis, detecting the metabolic differences between healthy and cancerous portions of the same sample. This constitutes tremendous progress in the field, since the cancer-prompted morphological alterations often occur after the biochemical imbalances in the oncogenic process. Therefore, the early cancer-associated metabolic changes are unnoticed by the histopathologist. Additionally, Raman and FTIR spectroscopies significantly reduce the subjectivity linked to cancer diagnosis. This review focuses on breast and head and neck cancers, their clinical needs and the progress made to date using vibrational spectroscopy as a diagnostic technique prior to surgical intervention and intraoperative margin assessment.

Glycosylation spectral signatures for glioma grade discrimination using Raman spectroscopy

“…Confocal Raman spectroscopy (RS), which combines vibrational spectroscopy with confocal microscopy, permits fingerprinting a sample’s chemical structure by analysing its biocomponents’ molecular bond vibrations. This information is represented as a spectral signature [ 8 ]; typically, a reduced spectral intensity correlates with a reduced concentration of biomolecules. RS has been used in cancer diagnosis to capture subtle changes in biomolecular composition, such as in DNA or protein [ 9 ], allowing comparison between cancerous and non-cancerous tissues and between stages of cancer development.…”

Breast cancer or surrounding normal tissue? A successful discrimination by FTIR or Raman microspectroscopy

“…[15][16][17][18][19] Regarding the latter, Raman and FTIR spectroscopic analyses, coupled with multivariate analysis, have allowed the identification of even the slightest chemical differences between specimens, thus distinguishing between two or more groups of samples as to their malignancy. [20][21][22][23][24] Giving rise to the field of spectral histopathology, aiming at providing add-on tools to the histopathological analysis through Raman and/or FTIR analysis of formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded (FFPE) samples mounted on glass slides, either haematoxylin and eosin (H&E)-stained or not, introducing minimal disruptions to the laboratory routine in order to increase the accuracy of the diagnosis. This approach is less common and carries great challenges regarding the use of glass slides, which may limit (i) a thorough Raman analysis since it provides a spectrum and may hinder the analysis of the data at ca.…”

Intraoperative In Vivo Imaging Modalities in Head and Neck Cancer Surgical Margin Delineation: A Systematic Review

“…Here, the authors recommended utilizing the faster imaging modalities (FLIM and OCT) first, followed by Raman spectroscopy to examine areas of interest more closely. It is important to note that while Raman spectroscopy and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy have been trialed in the early diagnosis of HNC, there have been no corresponding intraoperative in vivo studies measuring surgical margin delineation [ 72 ]. However, these technologies would be of high interest in future investigations focused on assessing surgical margins.…”