In vivo optical analysis of pancreatic cancer tissue in living model mice using fluorescence and Raman spectroscopic techniques

Living pancreatic cancer tissues grown subcutaneously in nude mice are studied by in vivo Raman spectroscopy and autofluorescence imaging. Comparing the same point spectra of alive pancreatic cancer tissue to that of the dead tissue, it is found that they are different each other. The results suggest that the spectral changes reflect the protein conformational changes in the tumor tissue with death of the host animal. From the result of autofluorescence study, in vivo autofluorescence imaging has potential as a method to assign the histological elements of the pancreatic cancer tissue without any staining. These results strongly suggest that combination of these techniques is very important to study biological tissue.