Raman spectroscopic analysis of ovarian cancer tissues and normal ovarian tissues

Fourier transform (FT) Raman spectra of normal and malignant ovarian tissues were measured in the 350 cm−1 to 3500 cm−1 region. The measured spectroscopic features, which are the spectroscopic fingerprints of the tissues, contain vital information about the malignant and normal tissues. FT Raman data on 15 cases of ovarian tissue from patients of different age groups were analyzed. Raman spectra demonstrated significant spectral differences between the normal and cancerous ovarian tissues. In particular, the changes in frequency and intensity in the spectra of protein, nucleic acids and glycogen vibrational modes were observed. It was evident that the sample to sample or patient to patient variations were small and the spectral differences between normal and diseased tissues were reproducible. These results demonstrate that Raman spectroscopy has great potential for cancer detection based on the subtle differences between normal and tumor tissues in terms of proteins, lipids, and DNA.