Near‐infrared Raman spectroscopy for optical diagnosis of lung cancer

Raman spectroscopy is a vibrational spectroscopic technique that can be used to optically probe the molecular changes associated with diseased tissues. The objective of our study was to explore near‐infrared (NIR) Raman spectroscopy for distinguishing tumor from normal bronchial tissue. Bronchial tissue specimens (12 normal, 10 squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) and 6 adenocarcinoma) were obtained from 10 patients with known or suspected malignancies of the lung. A rapid‐acquisition dispersive‐type NIR Raman spectroscopy system was used for tissue Raman studies at 785 nm excitation. High‐quality Raman spectra in the 700–1,800 cm–1 range from human bronchial tissues in vitro could be obtained within 5 sec. Raman spectra differed significantly between normal and malignant tumor tissue, with tumors showing higher percentage signals for nucleic acid, tryptophan and phenylalanine and lower percentage signals for phospholipids, proline and valine, compared to normal tissue. Raman spectral shape differences between normal and tumor tissue were also observed particularly in the spectral ranges of 1,000–1,100, 1,200–1,400 and 1,500–1,700 cm–1, which contain signals related to protein and lipid conformations and nucleic acid's CH stretching modes. The ratio of Raman intensities at 1,445 to 1,655 cm–1 provided good differentiation between normal and malignant bronchial tissue (p < 0.0001). The results of this exploratory study indicate that NIR Raman spectroscopy provides significant potential for the noninvasive diagnosis of lung cancers in vivo based on the optic evaluation of biomolecules. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.