Role of Raman spectroscopy in cancer diagnosis and monitoring therapeutic response

Cancer is considered to be one of the most life threatening diseases and it is a major public health problem in both developed and developing countries. Major reason of death is considered as late detection of cancerous lesions. But early detection is limited by the fact that most often cancers are asymptomatic and may not appear in diagnostic images. Histopathological diagnosis, based on visual examination to identify morphological peculiarities, which are indicative of disease, is the gold standard for cancer diagnosis. But this approach can be subjective, time consuming, also prone to inter observer disagreement and may not provide prognostic information to a clinician, especially for precancerous conditions. This methodology and other conventional approaches shown to have limited applications in other aspects of cancer management like screening, monitoring of treat response and recurrence. Optical spectroscopy techniques such as Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR), Raman, and fluorescence have been actively pursued in recent times. Early transformation from healthy to diseased states is attributed to biochemical changes within tissue. Since optical spectroscopic techniques are very sensitive to biochemical changes, they are being pursued as potential alternative/adjuncts to conventional diagnostic methodologies. Efficacy and potential applications of optical spectroscopic techniques in cancer diagnosis has been well demonstrated. In the present talk an overview on Raman spectroscopy in diagnosis and monitoring therapeutic response will be discussed. (author)