Study of paraffin-embedded colon cancer tissue using terahertz spectroscopy

• Colon cancer detection by THz-TDS.
• Paraffin-embedded samples.
• Sample cancer affected tissue zones, low transmittance.
• High absorption coefficient and refractive index for affected tissue.
• Dehydration of bio-tissues lead t low contrast.

In this work, samples of non-neoplastic and adenocarcinoma-affected human colon tissue samples were analyzed using multipoint transmission time-domain THz spectroscopy (THz-TDS) to sort out the contrast-contributing factors other than water, the main contrast mechanism factor in in-vivo or in freshly excised bio-tissue. Solving the electromagnetic inverse problem through THz-TDS and, analyzing the transmittance spectra that yielded the frequency-dependent absorption coefficient α and refractive index n of non-neoplastic and neoplastic tissues, we show that it is possible to distinguish between non-neoplastic and neoplastic regions in paraffin-embedded dehydrated. Results and discussion are presented.