Futuristic Clinical Diagnostic Tools: A Spectroscopist's Perspective

Coronary artery disease and cancer are the two most important causes of mortality in the United States. The annual expenses inflicted by these two conditions amount to 405 billion USD, the highest burden of all US medical spending. Finding accurate and easy to use modalities for their detection is of high importance. Fiber-optic based spectroscopy is an emerging technique for the identification of cancer and atherosclerosis. The MIT Spectroscopy Laboratory has created and developed over the past two decades theoretical platforms and tools of medical vibrational spectroscopy, intrinsic fluorescence, diffuse reflectance and scattering for the accurate identification of coronary atherosclerosis and breast, oral, vaginal and esophageal cancer or their precursors. The principle behind these techniques lies in the intrinsic chemical or histological properties of the tissues investigated such the Raman shift, intrinsic fluorescence, scattering or absorption. Advantages are their high accuracy, possibility of repeated testing with minimal or no surgical procedures, and the avoidance of imaging dye use. Refining these techniques represents a priority for the diagnostic and preventive medicine in the office or hospital ward.