Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectra of serum proteins purified from human serum samples were employed to detect colorectal cancer. Acetic acid as a new aggregating agent was introduced to increase the magnitude of the SERS enhancement. High-quality SERS spectra of serum proteins were acquired from 103 cancer patients and 103 healthy volunteers. Tentative assignments of SERS bands reflect that some specific biomolecular contents and protein secondary structures change with colorectal cancer progression. Principal component analysis combined with linear discriminant analysis was used to assess the capability of this approach for identifying colorectal cancer, yielding diagnostic accuracies of 100% (sensitivity: 100%; specificity: 100%) based on albumin SERS spectroscopy and 99.5% (sensitivity: 100%; specificity: 99%) based on globulin SERS spectroscopy, respectively. A partial least squares (PLS) approach was introduced to develop diagnostic models. An albumin PLS model successfully predicted the unidentified subjects with a diagnostic accuracy of 93.5% (sensitivity: 95.6%; specificity: 91.3%) and the globulin PLS model gave a diagnostic accuracy of 93.5% (sensitivity: 91.3%; specificity: 95.6%). These results suggest that serum protein SERS spectroscopy can be a sensitive and clinically powerful means for colorectal cancer detection.

Studies with circulating ribonucleic acid (RNA) not only provide new targets for cancer detection, but also open up the possibility of noninvasive gene expression profiling for cancer. In this paper, we developed a surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), platform for detection and differentiation of serum RNAs of colorectal cancer. A novel three-dimensional (3-D), Ag nanofilm formed by dry MgSO₄ aggregated silver nanoparticles, Ag NP, as the SERS-active substrate was presented to effectively enhance the RNA Raman signals. SERS measurements were performed on two groups of serum RNA samples. One group from patients, n = 55 with pathologically diagnosed colorectal cancer and the other group from healthy controls, n = 45. Tentative assignments of the Raman bands in the normalized SERS spectra demonstrated that there are differential expressions of cancer-related RNAs between the two groups. Linear discriminate analysis, based on principal component analysis, generated features can differentiate the colorectal cancer SERS spectra from normal SERS spectra with sensitivity of 89.1 percent and specificity of 95.6 percent. This exploratory study demonstrated great potential for developing serum RNA SERS analysis into a useful clinical tool for label-free, noninvasive screening and detection of colorectal cancers.

Nasopharyngeal malignancies remain one of the major causes of cancer-associated death and have high incidence rates in East Asia, particularly in South China.¹ Presently, routine white-light endoscopy and histological examination are the primary methods for clinical identification of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). Due to the anatomical position of NPC, it is not easy to diagnose this lesion early. Only about 10% and 20% of the diagnosed lesions are stage I and II diseases. Almost two thirds of the diagnosed NPCs are at an advanced stage.^2,3 Due to the fact that the therapeutic outcome is highly related to the stage of the disease, early identification of malignant NPC is crucial for improving the survival rate of patients.⁴

Raman spectroscopy (RS) was applied for the analysis of seminal plasma in order to detect spectral parameters, which might be used for differentiating the normal and abnormal semen samples. Raman spectra of seminal plasma separated from normal and abnormal semen samples, showed a distinct difference in peak ratios between 1449 and 1418 cm⁻¹ (P < 0.05). More efficient alternative method of using principal component analysis-linear discriminate analysis based on Raman spectroscopic data yielded a diagnostic sensitivity of 73% and specificity of 82%. The results suggest that RS combined with the multivariate analysis method has the potential for differentiating semen samples by examination of the corresponding seminal plasma.