Markers for tumor margin assessment through raman spectroscopy in comparative oncology

Abstract

The occurrence of tumour diseases in both animals and humans is continuously increasing. Research in nanosciences and molecular biology has put lately an intense effort to identify the aetiology factors and seek for new ways of diagnostic and targeted therapies aimed at reducing mortality and increasing chances to healing. Extensive development of cancer tumours is frequently counteracted through surgery. Assessment of a clean surgical margin is vital and a precise and rapid diagnostic down to molecule level represents a technical challenge with important clinical implications. We present a new way of using surgery instruments and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy for direct ex vivo (no freezing, no staining) and in vivo diagnostic of clean margins in mammary tumour surgery of pets (dogs and cats).Raman spectroscopy extracts chemical information with reported 100%sensitivity, 100% specificity and overall accuracy of 93% in identifying carcinomas. Our main result stays in identification of a set of molecular markers (carotenoids, lipids and intramolecular water) for Raman diagnostic in cat and dog mammary tumour surgery. Those markers have already been confirmed for human patients.