Urinary Metabolic Biomarker Profiling for Cancer Diagnosis by Terahertz Spectroscopy: Review and Perspective

Abstract

In the last decade, terahertz (THz) technologies have been introduced to the detection, identification, and quantification of biomolecules in various biological samples. This review focuses on substances that represent important biomarkers in the urine associated with various cancers and their treatments. From a diagnostic point of view, urine liquid biopsy is particularly important because it allows the non-invasive and rapid collection of large volumes of samples. In this review, the THz spectral responses of substances considered metabolic biomarkers in urine and obtained in previous studies are collected. In addition, the findings from the relatively small number of prior studies that have already been carried out on urine samples are summarised. In this context, we also present the different THz methods used for urine analysis. Finally, a brief discussion is given, presenting perspectives for future research in this field, interpreted based on the results of previous studies. This work provides important information on the further application of THz techniques in biomedicine for detecting and monitoring urinary biomarkers for various diseases, including cancer.

Analytical Gas Sensing in the Terahertz Spectral Range

“…High-resolution THz spectroscopy has thus been used to investigate the composition of metabolites in the thermal degradation products of healthy tissue and body fluid. In one of our previous reviews, we summarised the potential of THz spectroscopy to analyse different urinary metabolic biomarkers for diagnosis of cancer [21].…”

“…The applications of the developed THz systems spread their roots in various scientific fields. Most research and application solutions are devoted to medicine and biomedicine [20][21][22], pharmaceutical product control [23], security [24], space exploration [3,25], polymer and biopolymer analysis [26][27][28], waste management [29,30] and communication technologies [31,32]. Some attempts were also made to study food and agricultural products [33], construction and building materials [34], art and archaeology [35] as well as environmental monitoring [36].…”

Application of High-Resolution Terahertz Gas Spectroscopy for Studying the Composition of Thermal Decomposition Products in Human Urine of Prostate Cancer Patients

“…However, analysis of data in the literature shows that work contributing to the search for a characteristic set of metabolites in PC for diagnostic purposes is still ongoing. The reported spectral responses of substances in the THz frequency range, which are regarded as metabolic biomarkers appearing in urine, are presented in [12], where the results of a relatively small number of studies that have already been carried out on urine samples by various THz methods used for urine analysis are summarized.…”