| Abstract | Four analytical methods have been applied to infrared microscopic maps ofhuman skin which contained basal cell carcinoma tumors—namely, point spectroscopy,grayscale functional group mapping, digital staining, and fuzzy C-means (FCM) clusteranalysis. Spectroscopic interpretation using point spectroscopy allowed discriminationbetween normal and tumor-bearing skin components. Functional group mapping pro-vided information on the distribution of lipids, proteins, nucleic acids, and collagenwithin skin sections. While functional group mapping only allowed examination of onematerial (or a ratio of two materials) at a time, a new approach termed digital stainingallowed visualization of the distribution of up to three materials at one time. Digitalstaining thus gave a more detailed understanding of the tissue section. Finally, appli-cation of FCM cluster analysis, a nonsubjective, unsupervised classification methodol-ogy, allowed us to group spectra into five distinct clusters, which correlated to distincttissue components in skin. Tumor-bearing skin was clearly separated from normal skin.When different analytical methods are used in conjunction, a unique understanding oftissues can be obtained. Our results demonstrate that infrared microscopy has potentialfor the pathological diagnosis of skin tumors. |
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