Application of Raman spectroscopy for cervical dysplasia diagnosis

Cervical cancer is the second most common malignancy among women worldwide, with over 490000 cases diagnosed and 274000 deaths each year. Although current screening methods have dramatically reduced cervical cancer incidence and mortality in developed countries, a see and Treat method would be preferred, especially in developing countries. Results from our previous work have suggested that Raman spectroscopy can be used to detect cervical precancers; however, with a classification accurancy of 88%, it was not clinically applicable. In this paper, we describe how incorporating a woman's hormonal status partionlarly the points in menstrual cycle and incorporated stain into our previously developed classification algorthim improves the accuracy of our method to 94%. The results of this paper being Raman spectroscopy one step closer to being utilized in a clinical setting to diagnose cervical dysplasia. (c) 2009 by WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim