Aluminium foil as an alternative substrate for the spectroscopic interrogation of endometrial cancer

Biospectroscopy has the potential to investigate and characterize biological samples and could, therefore, be utilized to diagnose various diseases in a clinical environment. An important consideration in spectrochemical studies is the cost-effectiveness of the substrate used to support the sample, as high expense would limit their translation into clinic. In this paper, the performance of low-cost aluminium (Al) foil substrates was compared with the commonly used low-emissivity (low-E) slides. Attenuated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy was used to analyse blood plasma and serum samples from women with endometrial cancer and healthy controls. The 2 populations were differentiated using principal component analysis with support vector machines with 100% sensitivity in plasma samples (endometrial cancer = 70; healthy controls = 15) using both Al foil and low-E slides as substrates. The same sensitivity results (100%) were achieved for serum samples (endometrial cancer = 60; healthy controls = 15). Specificity was found higher using Al foil (90%) in comparison to low-E slides (85%) and lower using Al foil (70%) in comparison to low-E slides in serum samples. The establishment of Al foil as low-cost and highly performing substrate would pave the way for large-scale, multicentre studies and potentially for routine clinical use.