Discrimination of basal cell carcinoma and melanoma from normal skin biopsies in vitro through Raman spectroscopy and principal component analysis.
OBJECTIVE
Raman spectroscopy has been employed to discriminate between malignant (basal cell carcinoma [BCC] and melanoma [MEL]) and normal (N) skin tissues in vitro, aimed at developing a method for cancer diagnosis.


BACKGROUND
Raman spectroscopy is an analytical tool that could be used to diagnose skin cancer rapidly and noninvasively.


METHODS
Skin biopsy fragments of ≈ 2 mm(2) from excisional surgeries were scanned through a Raman spectrometer (830 nm excitation wavelength, 50 to 200 mW of power, and 20 sec exposure time) coupled to a fiber optic Raman probe. Principal component analysis (PCA) and Euclidean distance were employed to develop a discrimination model to classify samples according to histopathology. In this model, we used a set of 145 spectra from N (30 spectra), BCC (96 spectra), and MEL (19 spectra) skin tissues.


RESULTS
We demonstrated that principal components (PCs) 1 to 4 accounted for 95.4% of all spectral variation. These PCs have been spectrally correlated to the biochemicals present in tissues, such as proteins, lipids, and melanin. The scores of PC2 and PC3 revealed statistically significant differences among N, BCC, and MEL (ANOVA, p<0.05) and were used in the discrimination model. A total of 28 out of 30 spectra were correctly diagnosed as N, 93 out of 96 as BCC, and 13 out of 19 as MEL, with an overall accuracy of 92.4%.


CONCLUSIONS
This discrimination model based on PCA and Euclidean distance could differentiate N from malignant (BCC and MEL) with high sensitivity and specificity.
Health Sciences Center - CCS, Universidade Comunitária Regional de Chapecó - UNOCHAPECÓ, Chapecó, Brazil.
Benito
B
Bodanese
Fabrício Luiz
FL
Silveira
Renato Amaro
RA
Zângaro
Marcos Tadeu T
MT
Pacheco
Carlos Augusto
CA
Pasqualucci
Landulfo
L
Silveira
D001706:Biopsy; D002280:Basal Cell Carcinoma / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000473:pathology*; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D006801:Humans; D008545:Melanoma / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000473:pathology*; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D012867:Skin / Q000473:pathology*; D012878:Skin Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000473:pathology*; D013059:Spectrum Analysis, Raman