Raman spectroscopic diagnosis of breast cancers: Evaluation of models

Breast cancer is the leading cancer affecting women. Conventional screening and diagnostic methods are shown to suffer from well-described limitations. The aim of this study was to evaluate Raman spectroscopic models, which were developed earlier, by blinded tissue samples. We have recorded Raman spectra of 69 blinded tissue samples. In each sample, six or more spectra were recorded at different locations. Pretreated spectra were matched against normal, malignant and benign standard sets to obtain a match/mismatch status, which in turn was correlated with histopathology. Among 69 samples analyzed, 61 could be unambiguously diagnosed as 29 normal, 17 malignant and 15 benign, as their spectra matched with only one standard set and mismatched against the others. In the cases of the remaining tissue samples, matching them against pathological sets was the determining criteria. These samples were diagnosed as pathological since at least one of the spectra of these tissues had matched with pathological sets. Thus, we demonstrate a good correlation between histopathology and Raman spectroscopic diagnosis. Therefore, findings of the study further support the efficacy of Raman spectroscopic models that were developed by us. Prospectively, by developing models for as many pathological conditions as possible followed by rigorous validation, objective/unambiguous Raman spectroscopic diagnosis of breast pathologies can be realized.