Background: Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) combined with chemometrics discriminant analysis technology could improve diagnosis. The present study aimed to evaluate the effects of FT-IR on malignant colon tissue samples in diagnosis of colon cancer.
Methods: Principal component analysis (PCA) and support vector machine classification were used to discriminate FT-IR spectra from malignant and normal tissue. Colon tissues samples from 85 patients were used to demonstrate the procedure.
Results: For this set of colon spectral data, the sensitivity and specificity of the support vector machine (SVM) classification were found both higher than 90%.
Conclusions: FT-IR provided important information about cancerous tissue, which could be used to discriminate malignant from normal tissues. The combination of PCA and SVM classification indicated that FT-IR has a potential clinical application in diagnosis of colon cancer.