Bio-Raman spectroscopy: a potential clinical analytical method assisting in disease diagnosis

With the technical progress in lasers, charge coupled device detectors, and fiber-optic probes, Raman spectroscopy (RS) is enjoying a strong resurgence in the field of biomedical science, especially in disease diagnosis. During this time we have witnessed more and more in vitro and in vivo applications of RS, and increasingly frequent reports of its utility. RS enables the extraction of biochemical signatures from biological tissues, and in conjunction with different statistic algorithms, the spectral data with various pathologic attributions can be differentiated and classified depending on their spectral differences, e.g., peak area, peak height or peak shape. This makes RS a potential clinical analytical technique for rapid and non-destructive diagnosis of human diseases. This paper is a review of the biomedical applications of Raman spectroscopic techniques in diagnostics. First, a brief illumination of RS instrumentation and algorithms for data analysis is introduced. Then wide utilization of RS in disease diagnosis is reviewed categorized by different tissues and organs, including brain, eye, body surface organs (breast, skin), abdominal organs (stomach, esophagus, colon, liver), thoracic organs (arteries, lung), reproductive and urinary organs (prostate, cervix, bladder) and hard tissue (bone, teeth). Some other work from our group are also introduced.