Cervical cancer detection based on serum sample Raman spectroscopy

The use of Raman spectroscopy to analyze the biochemical composition of serum samples and hence distinguish between normal and cervical cancer serum samples was investigated. The serum samples were obtained from 19 patients who were clinically diagnosed with cervical cancer, 3 precancer, and 20 healthy volunteer controls. The imprint was put under an Olympus microscope, and around points were chosen for Raman measurement.All spectra were collected at a Horiba Jobin-Yvon LabRAM HR800 Raman Spectrometer with a laser of 830-nm wavelength and 17-mW power irradiation. Raw spectra were processed by carrying out baseline correction, smoothing, andnormalization to remove noise, florescence, and shot noise and then analyzed using principal component analysis (PCA). The control serum spectrum showed the presence of higher amounts of carotenoids indicated by peaks at 1,002, 1,160, and 1,523 cm^-1and intense peaks associated with protein components at 754, 853, 938, 1,002, 1,300-1,345, 1,447, 1,523, 1,550, 1,620, and 1,654 cm^-1. The Raman bands assigned to glutathione (446, 828, and 1,404 cm^-1) and tryptophan (509, 1,208, 1,556, 1,603, and 1,620 cm^-1) in cervical cancer were higher than those of control samples, suggesting that their presence may also play a role in cervical cancer. Furthermore, weak bands in the control samples attributed to tryptophan (545, 760, and 1,174 cm^-1) and amide III (1,234-1,290 cm ^-1) seem to disappear and decrease in the cervical cancer samples, respectively. It is shown that the serum samples from patients with cervical cancer and from the control group can be discriminated with high sensitivity and specificity when the multivariate statistical methods of PCA is applied to Raman spectra. PCA allowed us to define the wavelength differences between the spectral bands of the control and cervical cancer groups by confirming that the main molecular differences among the control and cervical cancer samples were glutathione, tryptophan, β carotene, and amide III. The preliminary results suggest that Raman spectroscopy could be a highly effective technique with a strong potential of support for current techniques as Papanicolaou smear by reducing the number of these tests; nevertheless, with the construction of a data library integrated with a large number of cervical cancer and control Raman spectra obtained from a wide range of healthy and cervical cancer population, Raman-PCA technique could be converted into a new technique for noninvasive real-time diagnosis of cervical cancer from serum samples.