| Abstract | IR spectroscopy is being widely used to study the biochemical changes associated with cancer. In particular, based upon the hypothesis that biochemical changes associated with cancer precede morphological manifestations of the disease, IR spectroscopy is being evaluated as a potential early diagnostic and prognostic tool. In the current study, IR spectroscopy was applied to the study of colon tissue from rats treated with the specific colon carcinogen azoxymethane, to determine whether tumor induction was associated with identifiable spectroscopic changes in the colon. Characteristic spectra were found for each layer of the colon. Spectra of normal-appearing mucosa and tumors form treated animals then compared to spectra of control mucosa. Differences between tumors and control mucosa were apparent, indicating changes in cellular biochemistry associated with tumor development. In particular, differences in absorptions attributed to nucleic acids were seen, indicating alterations in the structure of cellular DNA in malignant and carcinogen treated tissues. Interestingly, spectra of carcinogen treated rates exhibit characteristics intermediate between those of normal mucosa and tumors. Application of multivariate analysis allowed non-subjective classification of the spectra into three distinct classes with and accuracy of 86.7 percent. The separate classification of control and treated mucosa suggests that IR spectroscopy, when combined with the appropriate classifier, can indeed detect biochemical changes in tissue before physical manifestation of the disease process. |
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