Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy in Oral Cancer Diagnosis

• Published in: International journal of molecular sciences Vol. 22; no. 3; p. 1206
• Main Authors: Wang, Rong, Wang, Yong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 26.01.2021; MDPI
• Subjects: Animals; Biomarkers, Tumor; Biopsy; Body fluids; Cancer research; Carbohydrates; Diagnosis; Diagnostic software; Diagnostic systems; Disease Susceptibility; Early Detection of Cancer - methods; Early Detection of Cancer - standards; Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy; Fourier transforms; FTIR; Health services; Histocytochemistry; Humans; infrared imaging; Infrared spectroscopy; Medical diagnosis; Medical prognosis; Medical screening; Morbidity; Morphology; Mouth Neoplasms - diagnosis; Mouth Neoplasms - etiology; Mouth Neoplasms - metabolism; Neoplasm Grading - methods; Neoplasm Grading - standards; Neoplasm Staging - methods; Neoplasm Staging - standards; Oral cancer; oral cancer diagnosis; Oral cavity; oral dysplasia; oral squamous cell carcinoma; Patients; Proteins; Review; Risk assessment; Signal Transduction; Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared - methods; Spectrum analysis; Spectrum Analysis - methods; Spectrum Analysis - standards; Squamous cell carcinoma; Tumor Microenvironment; spectral cytopathology; oral cancer diagnosis; infrared imaging; oral dysplasia; spectral biomarkers; FTIR; Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy; oral squamous cell carcinoma; machine learning; multivariate analysis
• ISSN: 1422-0067; 1661-6596; 1422-0067
• DOI: 10.3390/ijms22031206

Oral cancer is one of the most common cancers worldwide. Despite easy access to the oral cavity and significant advances in treatment, the morbidity and mortality rates for oral cancer patients are still very high, mainly due to late-stage diagnosis when treatment is less successful. Oral cancer has also been found to be the most expensive cancer to treat in the United States. Early diagnosis of oral cancer can significantly improve patient survival rate and reduce medical costs. There is an urgent unmet need for an accurate and sensitive molecular-based diagnostic tool for early oral cancer detection. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy has gained increasing attention in cancer research due to its ability to elucidate qualitative and quantitative information of biochemical content and molecular-level structural changes in complex biological systems. The diagnosis of a disease is based on biochemical changes underlying the disease pathology rather than morphological changes of the tissue. It is a versatile method that can work with tissues, cells, or body fluids. In this review article, we aim to summarize the studies of infrared spectroscopy in oral cancer research and detection. It provides early evidence to support the potential application of infrared spectroscopy as a diagnostic tool for oral potentially malignant and malignant lesions. The challenges and opportunities in clinical translation are also discussed.