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Vanderbilt Biophotonics Center

Vanderbilt Biophotonics Center
  2. Research
  3. Optical Diagnosis
  4. Detecting Cervical Dysplasia in Minority Populations with Raman Spectroscopy

Detecting Cervical Dysplasia in Minority Populations with Raman Spectroscopy

Objectives: Cervical cancer is the second most common malignancy among women worldwide. A "See and Treat" protocol with adequate sensitivity and specificity would significantly improve this disease's management in low-resource settings. 

Methods: Over the past few years, our laboratories have developed a probe-based instrument to acquire Raman spectra from the cervix (see Figure).  Raman spectroscopy uses light to measure the vibrational and rotational properties of bonds found in a variety of biomolecules.  It is a molecular specific technique that can provide detailed information about the biochemical composition of a tissue sample.  Patients undergoing a Pap smear or colposcopy-guided biopsy are recruited to this study under informed consent.  For the Pap smear patients, the sterilized probe is placed directly onto the cervix in various locations for 2-3 seconds.  For the colposcopy-guided biopsy patients, the probe is placed in one normal area and any area(s) the doctor decides to biopsy.  We have acquired Raman spectra from the cervix and developed a sophisticated algorithm to classify tissue as normal (benign or inflammatory), metaplasia, low-grade, or high-grade dysplasia.

Results: Previous results from a Caucasian population show that our tool works with a sensitivity of 98% and a specificity of 96%, with high-grade spectra classifying correctly 95% of the time and low-grade data classifying correctly 74% of the time.  Preliminary data analysis on a more diverse patient population shows more varied results, due to race/ethnicity and differing socioeconomic status.  Parsing the data based on these backgrounds leads to sensitivity, specificity, and classification rates closer to that found in a more homogenous Caucasian population.

Conclusions: The results of using this non-invasive tool that can be used directly on patients from varying socioeconomic and ethnic/racial backgrounds show its benefit in any place where professional care is difficult to achieve.

Key words: see and treat, optical diagnosis

Schematic

Schematic of system used to measure Raman Spectra (NF: notch filter, BP: band-pass filter, CCD: charge-coupled device).

References

Vargis E, Byrd T, Khabele D, A Mahadevan-Jansen.Using Raman Spectroscopy to detect cervical dysplasia in minority populations. Society of Gynecologic Oncologists.San Francisco, CA, March 2010.

Vargis E, Byrd T, Khabele D, A Mahadevan-Jansen.  Using Raman Spectroscopy to detect cervical dysplasia in minority populations.  SPIE: Photonics West 2010.  San Francisco, CA, January 2010.

Vargis E, Kanter EM, Kanter G, Rao Gautam, A Mahadevan-Jansen.  Proximity to disease has a significant impact on automated disease classification of normal tissues.  Society of Gynecologic Oncologists.  San Francisco, CA, March 2010.

Vargis E, Byrd T, Khabele D, A Mahadevan-Jansen.  Using Raman Spectroscopy to detect cervical dysplasia in minority populations. Society of Gynecologic Oncologists.  San Francisco, CA, March 2010.

Kanter EM, Vargis E, Majumder S, Beaven RB, Rao GG, A Mahadevan-Jansen.  Raman Spectroscopy for Cervical Precancer Detection.  Journal of Biomedical Optics.  (In Preparation), 2010.

Kanter EM, Vargis E, Majumder S, Keller MD, Beaven RB, Rao GG, A Mahadevan-Jansen. Application of Raman Spectroscopy for Cervical Dysplasia Diagnosis.  Journal of Biophotonics, 2: (1-2), 81-90, 2009.

Kanter EM, Majumder SK, Vargis E, Robichaux-Viehoever A, Kanter G, Shappell H, Jones III HW Mahadevan-Jansen A. Multi-class discrimination of cervical precancers using Raman spectroscopy, Journal of Raman Spectroscopy, 40(2), 205-211, 2009.

Kanter EM, Majumder S, Vargis E, Robichaux-Viehoever A, Kanter G, Shappell H, III Jones H, A Mahadevan-Jansen.  Multi-class discrimination of cervical precancers using Raman spectroscopy.  Journal of Raman Spectroscopy, 40: (2), 205-211, 2009.

Kanter EM, Vargis E, Majumder SK, Keller MD, Beaven RB, Rao GG, Mahadevan-Jansen A, Raman spectroscopy for cervical precancer detection. Gynecologic Oncology (in review), December 2008.

Keller MD, Kanter EM, Hutchings J, Kendal C, Stone N, Mahadevan-Jansen A, Spatial and temporal effects of cervical dysplasia as detected by Raman spectroscopy (invited paper), Disease Markers (in press), August 2008.

Vargis E, Kanter EM, Majumder S, Jones H III, A Mahadevan-Jansen. Cervical Cancer Detection with Raman Spectroscopy.  Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center Retreat.  Nashville, TN, May 2008.

Vargis E, Kanter EM, Majumder SK, Jones HW III, Mahadevan-Jansen A, Cervical Cancer Detection with Raman Spectroscopy. SPEC 2008.  São José dos Campos, São Paulo, Brazil, October 2008.

Robichaux-Viehoever A, Kanter E, Shappell H, Billheimer D, Jones HW, Mahadevan-Jansen A, Characterization of Raman spectra measured in vivo for the detection of cervical dysplasia. Applied Spectroscopy, 61(9), 2007.

Keller MD, Kanter EM, Mahadevan-Jansen A, Raman spectroscopy for cancer diagnosis, Spectroscopy (Cover), 21 (11): 33-41, 2006.