Accuracy of Raman spectroscopy for differentiating skin cancer from normal tissue

Raman spectroscopy could be applied to distinguish tumor from normal tissues. This meta-analysis assessed the accuracy of Raman spectroscopy in differentiating skin cancer from normal tissue.

PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and CNKI were searched to identify suitable studies before Februray 4th, 2018. We estimated the pooled sensitivity, specificity, positive, and negative likelihood ratios, diagnostic odds ratio, and constructed summary receiver-operating characteristics curves to identify the accuracy of Raman spectroscopy in differentiating skin cancer from normal tissue.

A total of 12 studies with 2461 spectra were included. For basal cell skin cancer (BCC) ex vivo detection, the pooled sensitivity and specificity were 0.99 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.97-0.99) and 0.96 (95% CI 0.95-0.97), respectively. The area under the curve (AUC) was 0.9837. For BCC in vivo detection, the pooled sensitivity and specificity were 0.69 (95% CI 0.61-0.76) and 0.85 (95% CI 0.82-0.87), respectively. The AUC was 0.9213. For melanoma (MM) ex vivo detection, the pooled sensitivity and specificity were 1.00 (95% CI 0.91-1.00) and 0.98 (95% CI 0.95-1.00), respectively. The AUC was 0.9914. For MM in vivo detection, the sensitivity (0.93) and the specificity (0.96) balanced relatively well. For squamous cell skin cancer (SCC) ex vivo detection, the pooled sensitivity and specificity were 0.96 (95% CI 0.81-1.00) and 1.00 (95% CI 0.92-1.00), respectively. For SCC in vivo detection, the sensitivity was 0.81 (95% CI 0.70-0.90) and the specificity was 0.89 (95% CI 0.86-0.91).

This meta-analysis suggested that Raman spectroscopy could be an effective and accurate tool for differentiating BCC, MM, SCC from normal tissue, which would assist us in the diagnosis and treatment of skin cancer.