title: Raman spectroscopy of endoscopic colonic biopsies from patients with ulcerative colitis to identify mucosal inflammation and healing.
abstract: Raman spectroscopy was used to differentiate between mucosally healed (or quiescent) and inflamed colon tissue, as assessed endoscopically, in patients with ulcerative colitis. From the analysis of the Raman spectra of 60 biopsy tissue samples, clear differences were identified between the spectra of the quiescent and inflamed tissue. Three carotenoid peaks were found to be approximately twice as intense in the inflamed tissue. Two phospholipid peaks were found to be significantly lower in the inflamed tissue. Using multivariate statistical analysis, we show that these five peaks can be used to discriminate between endoscopically quiescent and inflamed tissue. We also correlated the Raman data with a histological assessment of the tissue. Four of the five peaks were found to be significantly different between the spectra of histologically healed (or quiescent) and histologically inflamed tissue. These findings indicate the ability of Raman spectroscopy to accurately classify colon tissue as either quiescent or inflamed, irrespective of whether an endoscopic or histological grading scheme is followed. We thus demonstrate that Raman spectroscopy could potentially be used as an early diagnosis tool for assessing the presence of mucosal healing or inflammation in patients with ulcerative colitis.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Materials Research, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK.
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Addis
authors.affiliation: Molecular Gastroenterology, St. James University Hospital, University of Leeds, UK.
authors.forename: Noor
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Mohammed
authors.affiliation: Department of Histopathology, St. James University Hospital, University of Leeds, UK.
authors.forename: Olorunda
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Rotimi
authors.affiliation: School of Computing, Faculty of Engineering, University of Leeds, UK.
authors.forename: Derek
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Magee
authors.affiliation: Institute of Materials Research, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK.
authors.forename: Animesh
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Jha
authors.affiliation: Molecular Gastroenterology, St. James University Hospital, University of Leeds, UK.
authors.forename: Venkataraman
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Subramanian
keywords: (170.4580) Optical diagnostics for medicine; (170.5660) Raman spectroscopy