Biomedical optical spectroscopy for the early diagnosis of gastrointestinal neoplasms

Abstract

Gastrointestinal cancer is a leading contributor to cancer-related morbidity and mortality worldwide. Early diagnosis currently plays a key role in the prognosis of patients with gastrointestinal cancer. Despite the advances in endoscopy over the last decades, missing lesions, undersampling and incorrect sampling in biopsies, as well as invasion still result in a poor diagnostic rate of early gastrointestinal cancers. Accordingly, there is a pressing need to develop noninvasive methods for the early detection of gastrointestinal cancers. Biomedical optical spectroscopy, including infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, diffuse scattering spectroscopy and autofluorescence, is capable of providing structural and chemical information about biological specimens with the advantages of non-destruction, non-invasion and reagent-free and waste-free analysis and has thus been widely investigated for the diagnosis of oesophageal, gastric and colorectal cancers. This review will introduce the advances of biomedical optical spectroscopy techniques, highlight their applications for the early detection of gastrointestinal cancers and discuss their limitations.

Advancing cancer diagnostics with artificial intelligence and spectroscopy: identifying chemical changes associated with breast cancer

“…This is the first time; breast cancer biopsy data was explored using AI and ML approaches based on subtype classification. AI approach studies have identified malignant tissues from normal and benign in various cancers such as lung cancer [54,60], skin cancer [61,62], brain cancer [18,63], gastro intestinal cancer [64,65], and oral cancer [66].…”

Molecular fingerprint of precancerous lesions in breast atypical hyperplasia

“…18,19 It can directly detect tumor tissue samples and quickly determine the internal molecular structure and characteristics of the samples, with the ability to identify subtle molecular changes in biological components even at the initial stage of the lesions. 20 Our team has performed Raman spectroscopy to detect breast cancer microcalcification, thus confirming its diagnostic utility. 13,21,22 Compared with normal tissues, the C-O bond stretching vibration of the b-sheet of amide I band (1610 cm À1 ) in protein appeared in breast AH tissues, indicating that the C-O group in the protein was severely damaged when the breast epithelial cells became cancerous, resulting in destruction of the protein conformation space.…”

Medical applications of reflectance spectroscopy in the diffusive and sub-diffusive regimes

“…Moreover, in the progressive stages of cancer, the epithelial tissue thickness increases, that results in reduced amount of light delivery to the collagen fiber of connective tissue, which ultimately alters the scattering coefficient and the diffuse reflectance spectral intensity. 68 Therefore, DRS is a sensitive tool, enabling diagnosis of cervical cancer, 69 gastrointestinal cancer, 70 skin cancer, 22 colon cancer, 71 breast cancer, 72 brain tumor, 73 lung cancer, 74 and renal carcinoma, 75 because they rely on the tissues biochemical and morphological feature. In the following section, we shortly describe the application of DRS for certain types of cancer diagnosis, without covering all the above-mentioned cancers.…”