Differentiation of Urothelial Carcinoma and Normal Bladder Tissues by Means of Fiber-Based ATR IR Spectroscopy

Simple Summary Non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) is a complicated locally treated disease with high recurrence rates and high risk of progression to muscle invasive disease. Current standard diagnostic approach based on white light cystoscopy (WLC) is characterized by high false negative rate, excessive invasion of the bladder and high economic burden. Hereby we present the fiber-based attenuated total reflection infrared (ATR IR) spectroscopy study of healthy and cancerous tissue samples taken from 54 patients to delineate normal and tumorous human bladder tissues under ex vivo conditions. Investigation of the tissue samples immediately after surgical operation allows to examine samples in their native conditions and establish their initial structure and chemical composition avoiding sample degradation. Our study reveals that fiber-based ATR IR spectroscopy could be an addition to current endoscopic approach with increased diagnostic accuracy and with some potential to be applied in vivo. Abstract Surgical treatment is widely applied curative approach for bladder cancer. White light cystoscopy (WLC) is currently used for intraoperative diagnostics of malignant lesions but has relatively high false-negative rate. Here we represent an application of label free fiber-based attenuated total reflection infrared spectroscopy (ATR IR) for freshly resected human bladder tissue examination for 54 patients. Defined molecular spectral markers allow to identify normal and urothelial carcinoma tissues. While methods of statistical analysis (Hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) and Principal component analysis (PCA)) used for spectral data treatment allow to discriminate tissue types with 91% sensitivity and 96–98% specificity. In the present study the described method was applied for tissue examination under ex vivo conditions. However, after method validation the equipment could be translated from laboratory studies to in situ or even in vivo studies in operating room.