Abstract
The accurate identification of the human brain tumor boundary and the complete resection of the tumor are two essential factors for the removal of the glioma tumor in brain surgery. We present a visible resonance Raman (VRR) spectroscopy technique for differentiating the brain tumor margin and glioma grading. Eighty-seven VRR spectra from twenty-one human brain specimens of four types of brain tissues, including the control, glioma grade II, III, and IV tissues, were observed. This study focuses on observing the characteristics of new biomarkers and their changes in the four types of brain tissue. We found that two new RR peaks at 1129 cm−1 and 1338 cm−1 associated with molecular vibrational bonds in four types of brain tissues are significantly different in peak intensities of VRR spectra. These two resonance enhanced peaks may arise from lactic acid/phosphatidic acid and adenosine triphosphate (ATP)/nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, respectively. We found that lactic acid and ATP concentrations vary with glioma gratings. The higher the grade of malignancy, the more the increase in lactic acid and ATP concentrations. These two RR peaks may be considered as new molecular biomarkers and used to evaluate glioma grades and identify the margin of gliomas from the control tissues. The metabolic process of lactic acid and ATP in glioma cells based on the VRR spectral changes may reveal the Warburg hypothesis.
Highlights
Nowadays, nearly 700 000 people are living with a primary brain and central nerve system (CNS) tumor in the USA.[1]
We propose a new optical molecular histopathology method for real-time evaluation of the normal control and glioma grade II, grade III, and grade IV tissues by using visible resonance Raman (VRR) spectroscopy techniques[13,14,15,16] based on the native molecular characteristics in the Raman spectra of human brain tissues
We propose that this peak is derived from the combined contribution of lactic acid, phosphatidic acid, and glucose.[18,19,20]
Summary
The current clinical routine diagnosis of brain tumors is performed by using biopsy and histopathology, which is considered the gold standard This method requires freezing the biopsy tissue and reagent preparation prior to microscopic analysis. Neurosurgeons suffer from the problem that the current technology is not able to accurately identify the boundaries between brain tumors and normal tissues quickly and timely during surgery. This work is to continue the new progress of Alfano’s group which created the optical biopsy field.[17] It is found that the additional two molecular biomarkers, i.e., RR peaks at 1129 cm−1 and 1338 cm−1, from the four types of brain tissues are significantly different in intensity by using the VRR technique This result may help a surgeon better decide surgical margins of tumors.[13,16]
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