Screening of gastric carcinoma cells in the human malignant gastric mucosa by confocal Raman microspectroscopy

Confocal Raman microspectroscopy was used to characterize gastric carcinoma cell in both cultured cells and human gastric mucosa tissues. Based on the spectra of single cultured cell, gastric carcinoma cells were screened out in the malignant gastric mucosa successfully and the positive ratio is about 58.06%. The high SNR (signal-to-noise) spectra from human gastric mucosa tissues and cells were obtained by this technique without any sample preparation and the time of detection required less than 3 min. Comparing spectra of malignant gastric mucosa tissues with those of counterpart normal ones, there were obvious spectral changes, including intensity decrease at ∼1587 cm−1 and alteration of peak shape at ∼1660 cm−1 with malignancy. Additionally, spectral features of single cell also differed from those of stomach tissues at ∼1525 and ∼1156 cm−1 where these two bands were assigned to carotenoids. These results demonstrate the possibility of a rapid clinical diagnosis of gastric carcinoma with Raman microspectroscopy in combination with a remote optical probe.