Study on the malignant and normal rectum tissues using H-1 NMR spectroscopy

Cancer is one of the most serious diseases, a threat to human body's health and a causes of death. The early diagnosis of cancer and timely therapy is significant for improving the survival. Owing to the complexity and limit of conventional medical diagnosis, misdiagnosis of ten occurs in many cases. NMR spectroscopy is an effective technique for characterizing molecular structure and component changes. The component and structural information of nucleic acid, protein, lipid and glucide in the biologic tissues can also be distinguished from NMR data. In the present paper, a new method was developed for the diagnosis of tumor using the advanced physical chemistry (NMR) and biomedicine technique. Nine rectum tissue samples and their corresponding normal tissues of rectum were measured using NMR spectroscopy. Each tissue sample obtained from the operation was quickly separated into two parts averagely: one was dipped into 10% formalin solution and prepared for conventional pathological examination; the other was preserved in liquid nitrogen for further NMR detection. Before NMR detection, the corresponding sample was thawed at room temperature and was dipped into 0.5 mL D2O. Dioxane was used as external reference. The obtained NMR spectra were analyzed and compared by OMNIC5.0(TM) and SPSS 11.0(TM) Software. The differences of metabolite in the tissues samples were studied and a method for the diagnosis of cancer using NMR data was initially explored. The result indicates that the H-1 NMR spectra of rectum cancer tissues are significantly different from those of their corresponding normal rectum tissues. This is shown by the differences in the integral area ratio at characteristic peak region. A0.9/A3.0,A1.3/A3.0, A2.0/A3.0, A1.3/A0.9 and A4.1/A3.0 of the normal rectum tissues are higher than those of their corresponding cancer tissues, but A3.2/A3.0 is lower than that of the rectum cancer tissues. From the above result it is concluded that the concentration of fatty acid, inositol and lactate is lower in the rectum cancer tissues than in the normal tissues, while that of choline bases compounds is higher. The NMR judgments were also consistent with the pathological examination results. So the NMR spectra may be developed into a method of early diagnosing rectum cancer through these differences.