Near infrared Raman spectroscopic characterization of blood plasma of normal, oral premalignant and malignant conditions-a pilot study

The metabolic end products from cells/tissues that are released into the circulating blood stream and any changes in their level because of pathological conditions may be used as markers in disease diagnosis. Raman spectroscopy has been exploited to characterize the biomolecules present in the blood plasma of clinically confirmed normal group, premalignant (Oral Sub Mucous Fibrosis) and malignant (Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma) at 784.15 nm. Raman spectral signatures show relatively less intense Raman bands of phenylalanine, lipid and antioxidant beta carotene but higher intense bands for proteins, DNA base components and amino acids (tyrosine and tryptophan) for malignant group than that of normal group. However premalignant group possess high intense Raman bands for amino acids (tyrosine and tryptophan) at 830, 1020 and 1620 cm−1 and protein peaks at 913, 978 and 1646 cm−1 when compared to that of malignant and normal group. Principal component analysis coupled with linear discriminant analysis (PCA‐LDA) yielded a diagnostic sensitivity of 96.3% and 91.2%, and a specificity of 80.0% and 96.7% in the classification of normal from premalignant and normal from malignant, respectively. This indicates that Raman spectroscopy of blood plasma has the potential in classifying normal and oral malignancy conditions. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. In this study, Raman spectroscopy has been exploited to characterize the biomolecules present in the blood plasma of normal group, premalignant (Oral Sub Mucous Fibrosis) and malignant (Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma) at 784.15 nm. Raman bands of phenylalanine, lipid, antioxidant beta carotene, DNA base components and amino acids (tyrosine and trytophan) played a major role in the discrimination between the groups. The classification results of PCA‐LDA for normal versus abnormal group yielded an efficiency of 78%.