Serum Raman spectroscopy in experimental carcinogenesis hamster buccal pouch model: Exploring early diagnostic capability

Abstract

AbstractAbout two third of oral cancer cases present at advanced stages, emphasizing the need for screening tools for early diagnosis. Raman spectroscopy (RS) can prove an appropriate tool for early diagnosis as biochemical changes occur before morphological changes. Due to limitations with study of early oral cancer stages in human subjects, we performed a sequential carcinogenesis study in animal model. In the present study, we aim to probe early biochemical changes occurring during DMBA induced oral carcinogenesis in hamster buccal pouch model, using serum RS (SRS). Serum being systemic biofluid can reflect the true in vivo state, is minimally invasive and offers advantages of remote diagnosis and serial sampling. The female Syrian golden hamsters were treated with 0.5% DMBA and retro‐orbital blood collection was performed every week for a period of 14 weeks. An increase in classification efficiency as the DMBA treatment progressed, with distinct classification of >70% seen as early as week 5 (W5), appreciably early to development of visual changes (W8–W10) was observed. Furthermore, the early treatment weeks (W1–W4) and healthy condition (W0) show no misclassifications with weeks exhibiting frank tumours (W9–W14), demonstrating efficacy of SRS to stratify healthy versus carcinogen exposure. The findings suggest that as oral carcinogenesis progresses, biochemical alterations in serum such as increasing protein and loss of lipid content can be detected by RS, highlighting the feasibility and utility of SRS in early oral cancer diagnosis. To our knowledge, this is the first study exploring the ex vivo sequential approach to gain insights into oral cancer progression.