title: Real-time Raman spectroscopy for in vivo skin cancer diagnosis.
abstract: Raman spectroscopy is a noninvasive optical technique capable of measuring vibrational modes of biomolecules within viable tissues. In this study, we evaluated the application of an integrated real-time system of Raman spectroscopy for in vivo skin cancer diagnosis. Benign and malignant skin lesions (n = 518) from 453 patients were measured within 1 second each, including melanomas, basal cell carcinomas, squamous cell carcinomas, actinic keratoses, atypical nevi, melanocytic nevi, blue nevi, and seborrheic keratoses. Lesion classification was made using a principal component with general discriminant analysis and partial least-squares in three distinct discrimination tasks: skin cancers and precancers from benign skin lesions [receiver operating characteristic (ROC) = 0.879]; melanomas from nonmelanoma pigmented lesions (ROC = 0.823); and melanomas from seborrheic keratoses (ROC = 0.898). For sensitivities between 95% and 99%, the specificities ranged between 15% and 54%. Our findings establish that real-time Raman spectroscopy can be used to distinguish malignant from benign skin lesions with good diagnostic accuracy comparable with clinical examination and other optical-based methods.
authors.affiliation: Photomedicine Institute, Department of Dermatology and Skin Science, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. harvey.lui@ubc.ca
authors.forename: Harvey
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lui
authors.forename: Jianhua
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: McLean
authors.forename: Haishan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zeng
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001706:Biopsy; D003199:Computer Systems; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D017492:Keratosis, Seborrheic / Q000175:diagnosis; D008297:Male; D008545:Melanoma / Q000175:diagnosis; D008875:Middle Aged; D012878:Skin Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis; D013059:Spectrum Analysis, Raman / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*