Vibrational Spectroscopy Applications in Clinical Chemistry

Abstract

Vibrational spectroscopy is well suited in principle to carry out several of the most common quantitative blood, serum, and urine tests. In addition, the same techniques can serve as the foundation for explicitly diagnostic tests, with the vibrational spectrum serving as a molecular fingerprint characterizing the sample of interest; to the extent that the spectrum changes in a characteristic way with disease onset and progression; it may be exploited as a marker of both. This article summarizes the techniques that might be applied to carry out these tests routinely in the clinical laboratory, and detailing specific analytical and diagnostic tests that have been established as proof‐of‐concept examples to illustrate the potential for this approach.

Infrared Spectroscopy of Biofluids in Clinical Chemistry and Medical Diagnostics

“…8,9 ATR spectroscopy carries the advantage of reproducibility in optical pathlength -a criterion that can be difficult to achieve in transmission measurements at the very short pathlengths ($10 mm) required for mid-IR spectroscopy of aqueous samples. Near-IR spectroscopy offers the advantage of convenient sample handling and inexpensive optical materials; very reproducible transmission spectroscopy measurements are straightforward in glass cells of pathlength $0.5 mm.…”

“…These aspects are covered in some detail elsewhere in this Handbook, and they have been reviewed previously in the context of medical applications. [4][5][6][7][8][9] We therefore summarize only the essential and relevant features here.…”

Biological Applications

“…Common infrared tests in clinical chemistry include glucose, blood and urine analyses [8,9,[55][56][57][58][59][60][61]. The quantification of glucose in body fluids is an important aspect of clinical analysis, especially in the case of blood glucose measurements for diabetic patients.…”

“…Biological systems, including lipids, proteins, peptides, biomembranes, nucleic acids, animal tissues, microbial cells, plants and clinical samples, have all been successfully studied by using infrared spectroscopy [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. Biological systems, including lipids, proteins, peptides, biomembranes, nucleic acids, animal tissues, microbial cells, plants and clinical samples, have all been successfully studied by using infrared spectroscopy [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11].…”

Infrared spectroscopy of biofluids: from the research lab to the clinical lab

“…The first study to make use of this approach developed a diagnostic test for arthritis based upon the IR spectra of dried synovial fluid films. [11][12][13] Since then, numerous studies both from our group [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28] and others [29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38] have illustrated the potential for this approach in clinical analysis and diagnostics.…”