title: Analysis of ovarian tumor pathology by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Ovarian cancer is the second most common cancer among women and the leading cause of death among gynecologic malignancies. In recent years, infrared (IR) spectroscopy has gained attention as a simple and inexpensive method for the biomedical study of several diseases. In the present study infrared spectra of normal and malignant ovarian tissues were recorded in the 650 cm-1 to 4000 cm-1 region.
  
  
  METHODS
  Post surgical tissue samples were taken from the normal and tumor sections of the tissue. Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) data on twelve cases of ovarian cancer with different grades of malignancy from patients of different age groups were analyzed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Significant spectral differences between the normal and the ovarian cancerous tissues were observed. In particular changes in frequency and intensity in the spectral region of protein, nucleic acid and lipid vibrational modes were observed. It was evident that the sample-to-sample or patient-to-patient variations were small and the spectral differences between normal and diseased tissues were reproducible.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The measured spectroscopic features, which are the spectroscopic fingerprints of the tissues, provided the important differentiating information about the malignant and normal tissues. The findings of this study demonstrate the possible use of infrared spectroscopy in differentiating normal and malignant ovarian tissues.
authors.affiliation: Optical Radiation Standards, National Physical Laboratory, (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi), Dr K S Krishnan Marg, New Delhi 110012, India. ranjana@mail.nplindia.ernet.in.
authors.forename: Ranjana
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mehrotra
authors.forename: Gunjan
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Tyagi
authors.forename: Deepak K
authors.initials: DK
authors.lastname: Jangir
authors.forename: Ramesh
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Dawar
authors.forename: Noopur
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Gupta