Expression of Integrin Α V Β 6 and Tgf - Β in Scar - Free Vs . Scar - Forming Wound Healing

Background: Raman spectroscopy is a non-invasive optical technique, which has the capability in determining the molecular structure and conformation of biochemical constitutes. Recently we developed a rapid real-time Raman spectrometer system, paving the way for clinical application of Raman spectroscopy. Hypothesis: The morphological structure and the bio-molecular constitutes have been altered in the cancerous skin and these changes can be detected by Raman spectroscopy. Methods and Patients: The real-time Raman system was used for clinical measurements. The cancerous lesion and its surrounding normal skin were measured for paired analysis. 310 spectral pairs were evaluated including 37 melanomas, 24 basal cell carcinomas (BCC), and 49 squamous cell carcinomas (SCC), 24 actinic keratoses, 53 seborrheic keratoses, 32 atypical nevi, 22 compound nevi, 25 intradermal nevi, 23 junctional nevi, 10 nevi of Ota, and 11 blue nevi. Statistical methods including principal component analysis (PCA), and partial least square (PLS) regression have been used for diagnosis. Results and Conclusion: Cancerous and normal skin have distinctive spectral features. On average, melanoma and SCC have higher fluorescence intensity, while BCC has lower fluorescence intensity than normal skin. However, normal skin has stronger Raman peak intensity (at 1445cm) than melanoma, BCC and SCC. Statistical analysis demonstrated that skin cancers can be very well discriminated from benign skin lesions (sensitivity= 91%, specificity = 75%) and malignant melanoma from pigmented lesions (sensitivity = 97%, specificity = 78%). The results demonstrated that real-time bedside Raman spectroscopy is both technically feasible and promising for non-invasive skin cancer diagnosis.