title: Polarized reflectance spectroscopy for pre-cancer detection.
abstract: Early detection of cancer and its curable precursors remains the best way to ensure patient survival and quality of life. Thus, highly selective, sensitive and cost-effective screening and diagnostic techniques to identify curable pre-cancerous lesions are desperately needed. Precancers are characterized by increased nuclear size, increased nuclear/cytoplasmic ratio, hyperchromasia and pleomorphism, which currently can only be assessed through an invasive, painful biopsy. Here, we describe the development of a non-invasive optical technique based on polarized reflectance spectroscopy that has the potential to provide in real time diagnostically useful information for pre-cancer detection. Our results demonstrate that polarized reflectance spectroscopy can be used to selectively detect the size-dependent scattering characteristics of nuclei in vivo. We gradually progress from cell suspensions to realistic three-dimensional tissue models of epithelium, then to cervical biopsies and, finally to in vivo studies on normal volunteers and clinical patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Imaging Physics, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, 1515 Holcombe Blvd., Unit 56, Houston, TX 77030, USA. kostia@mail.utexas.edu
authors.forename: Konstantin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sokolov
authors.forename: Linda T
authors.initials: LT
authors.lastname: Nieman
authors.forename: Alexey
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Myakov
authors.forename: Ann
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gillenwater
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001706:Biopsy; D002467:Cell Nucleus / Q000473:pathology; D003952:Diagnostic Imaging / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D051379:Mice; D018613:Microscopy, Confocal / Q000295:instrumentation; D010865:Pilot Projects; D013057:Spectrum Analysis / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology