Evaluation of a multi-fibre needle Raman probe for tissue analysis

Raman spectroscopy is a rapid technique for the identification of cancers. Its coupling with a hypodermic needle provides a minimally invasive instrument with the potential to aid real time assessment of suspicious lesions in vivo and guide surgery. A fibre optic Raman needle probe was utilised in this study to evaluate the classification ability of the instrument as a diagnostic tool together with multivariate analysis, through measurements of tissues from different animal species as well as various different porcine tissue types. Cross validation was performed and preliminary classification accuracies were calculated as 100% for the identification of tissue type and 97.5% for the identification of animal species. A lymph node sample was also measured using the needle probe to assess the use of the technique for human tissue and hence its efficiency as a clinical instrument. This needle probe has been demonstrated to have the capabilities to classify tissue samples based on their biochemical components. The Raman needle probe also has the potential to act as a diagnostic and surgical tool to delineate cancerous from non-cancerous cells in real time, thus assisting complete removal of a tumour.