Spectral model for diagnosis of acute leukemias in whole blood and plasma through Raman spectroscopy

Abstract

Acute leukemias are oncohematological diseases that compromise the bone marrow and have a complex diagnostic definition, leading to a high mortality when diagnosed late. This study proposed to determine the spectral differences between whole blood and plasma samples of healthy and leukemic subjects based on Raman spectroscopy (RS), correlating these differences with their resulting biochemical alterations and performing discriminant analysis of the samples (n ¼ 38 whole blood and n ¼ 40 plasma samples). Raman spectra were obtained using a dispersive Raman spectrometer (830-nm wavelength, 280-mW laser power, 30-s exposure time) with a Raman probe. The exploratory analysis based on principal component analysis (PCA) of the blood and plasma sample's spectra showed loading vectors with peaks related to amino acids, proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, and carotenoids, being the spectral differences related to amino acids and proteins for whole blood samples, and mainly carotenoids for plasma samples. Discriminant models based on partial least squares (PLS) and PCA were developed and classified the spectra as healthy or leukemic, with sensitivity of 91.9% (PLS) and 83.9% (PCA), specificity of 100% (both PLS and PCA), and overall accuracy of 96.5% (PLS) and 93.0% (PCA) for the whole blood spectra. In plasma, the sensitivity was 95.7% (PLS) and 11.6% (PCA), specificity of 98% (PLS) and 100% (PCA), and overall accuracy of 97.1% (PLS) and 64.1% (PCA). The study demonstrated that RS is a technique with potential to be applied in the diagnosis of acute leukemias in whole blood samples.

Diagnosing COVID-19 in human serum using Raman spectroscopy: a preliminary study

“…The DA model was also implemented via partial least squares (PLS) regression using the whole spectral information instead of the selected PCs [32]. Multivariate models such as PCA and PLS have been used for classification of Raman spectra of sera in normal and anemia [33] and for quantification of blood analytes in human serum for diagnosis [22,23].…”

Discrimination of leukemias and non-leukemic cancers in blood serum samples of children and adolescents using a Raman spectral model

“…Raman spectroscopy is based on the inelastic scattering of incident laser light by the molecules, and studies demonstrated the possibilities of the technique to determine the biochemical composition of biological tissues and fluids for qualitative (differentiation in the biochemical composition) and quantitative (differences in the concentration of selected biochemicals) analyses [ 10 , 11 , 17 , 19 , 20 ]. It can be used for cancer diagnosis [ 17 , 19 , 21 – 25 ] and cancer prognosis [ 13 , 26 , 27 ], being considered promising for showing the differences and using them to discriminate between benign and malignant tissues in different pathologies, including prostate [ 21 , 22 ], stomach [ 23 , 24 ], breast cancer [ 25 ], and skin [ 14 , 19 , 26 ], among others [ 11 , 13 , 17 , 20 , 27 ] in both in vivo and ex vivo. Raman technique does not require complicated sample preparation; it is non-invasive and non-destructive and provides information on the vibrational energy modes of molecules in real-time, allowing in situ analysis of biological tissues with high precision [ 18 , 20 , 21 ] without tissue removal [ 11 , 12 , 17 , 19 , 28 , 29 ].…”

“…In a study with blood serum samples, González-Solís et al [ 20 ] used Raman and principal component analysis (PCA) to differentiate serum from normal and leukemic patients and identify the different types of leukemia based on the biochemical composition of the serum. Silva et al [ 27 ] used whole blood and plasma samples from healthy and leukemic subjects based on Raman and PCA to differentiate leukemic and non-leukemic patients according to biochemical changes. González-Solís et al [ 20 ] and Silva et al [ 27 ] showed an increase in the concentration of plasma carotenoids in the normal group and associated this compound with a protective role against neoplasms.…”

Elucidating the Heterogeneity of Serum Metabolism in Patients with Myelodysplastic Syndrome and Acute Myeloid Leukemia by Raman Spectroscopy

“…The 957 cm –1 peak represents both lipid and β-carotenoids. We speculate that the antioxidant level in patients with AML and MDS is low, which is not conducive to free radical scavenging, while the high carotenoid level in healthy individuals inhibits tumors, such as AML and MDS. − In the remission phase of leukemia, the plasma carotenoid level increases, which may also act as a self-protection mechanism …”