Thyroid cancer diagnosis by Raman spectroscopy

Abstract

Over the last 50 years, the incidence of human thyroid cancer disease has seen a significative increment. This comes along with an even higher increment of surgery, since, according to the international guidelines, patients are sometimes addressed to surgery also when the fine needle aspiration gives undetermined cytological diagnosis. As a matter of fact, only 30% of the thyroid glands removed for diagnostic purpose have a post surgical histological report of malignancy: this implies that about 70% of the patients have suffered an unnecessary thyroid removal. Here we show that Raman spectroscopy investigation of thyroid tissues provides reliable cancer diagnosis. Healthy tissues are consistently distinguished from cancerous ones with an accuracy of ∼ 90%, and the three cancer typology with highest incidence are clearly identified. More importantly, Raman investigation has evidenced alterations suggesting an early stage of transition of adenoma tissues into cancerous ones. These results suggest that Raman spectroscopy may overcome the limits of current diagnostic tools.

Raman Spectroscopy Discloses Altered Molecular Profile in Thyroid Adenomas

“…In a previous study, we applied RS augmented by cluster analysis to investigate histological samples from human thyroid [ 15 ]. This approach allowed us to classify each Raman spectrum into homogeneous groups, characterized by the presence of bands from carotenoids and cytochrome c, within the fingerprint region (600–1800 cm −1 ).…”

“…Our previous study using Raman spectroscopy to evaluate the biochemical profile of thyroid lesions [ 15 ] demonstrated that RS is able to discriminate malignant thyroid lesion from benign nodule and healthy thyroid parenchyma with an accuracy of 90%. Of relevance, Raman spectroscopy also separated malignant clustered cases in follicular carcinomas and papillary carcinomas.…”

“…In 2016, for the first time, our group showed that RS is able to discriminate, with high accuracy, between healthy and neoplastic thyroid tissues [ 14 ]. More recently, we have identified the molecular fingerprints of thyroid neoplasms [ 15 ]. This has allowed to identify, by statistical signal analysis, four clusters, corresponding to healthy/benign, FC, PTC, FV-PTC tissues, among a population of 46 histological thyroid samples.…”

Recent Advances in the Label-Free Characterization of Exosomes for Cancer Liquid Biopsy: From Scattering and Spectroscopy to Nanoindentation and Nanodevices

“…Vibrational spectroscopy (VS) techniques, such as Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) and Raman spectroscopy, are emerging as major tools in contemporary diagnostics for the clinical evaluation of different types of human bioptic samples, including cells, tissues, biofluids, and extracellular vesicles (EVs) [25,[126][127][128][129][130][131][132][133][134][135]. These methods primarily exploit the fact that chemical bonds within biomolecules absorb in the mid-infrared (IR) range of the electromagnetic spectrum, i.e., from 2.5 to 20 µm (4000 to 500 cm −1 ) as a consequence of the excitation of fundamental vibrational and rotational modes.…”

Spectroscopic evaluation of carcinogenesis in endometrial cancer

“…Spectroscopy could be used as a comparative for gold standard methods facilitating clinical decision-making and patient outcomes by detecting biochemical changes in tissues before the changes can be observed under microscope. Nowadays, Raman and FTIR spectroscopy methods are used to detect chemical changes caused by lung 12 , 15 , bones 16 , 17 , thyroid 13 , 18 , breast 19 , prostate 20 , endometrial cancers 4 . However, recognizing changes visible during neoplastic process is important in the cancer diagnostics.…”