ATR-FTIR Spectroscopy

About

Introduction: Over the last few decades, incidence rates of cutaneous melanoma have been increasing in many regions and populations. It is a deadly form of skin cancer that develops from the cells (melanocytes), and it is the most common type of melanoma worldwide. The increase has been of the order of 3-7% per year among fair-skinned populations. At the same time, non-Hodgkins lymphoma (NHL), a solid tumorous condition of the immune system, accounts for 4.3% of all new cancer cases in the US. Research has shown that NHL patients have an increased risk of developing cutaneous melanoma. Although significant improvement has been made to stabilize the number of NHL cases and to increase its five-year survival rate, the existing diagnostic techniques (including biopsy) are very invasive, time-consuming, costly, and not accessible to the entire at-risk population. Also, the process requires procedural suites and several trained specialists, costing even additional time before delivering the final result to the doctor to decide the treatment plan. Therefore, developing a more rapid and reliable prescreening strategy for these diseases could result in critical improvements to the early diagnosis and treatment of these malignancies and the patients' chances of survival. Technology: Georgia State University researchers have developed a new rapid method for the discrimination of normal and tumorous conditions through testing of serum samples from respective mouse models. Using just a droplet of blood put on a portable device, an attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR)-based spectroscopic screening technique is used to accurately detects the presence of lymphoma and melanoma cancers. This attractive technology holds an excellent diagnostic potential and could also be useful in making personalized plans for rapid evaluation of cancer status and associated therapeutic modalities.