Classification of formalin-fixed bladder cancer cells with laser tweezer Raman spectroscopy

Bladder cancer is a common cancer that is relatively hard to detect at an early stage because of its non-obvious symptoms. It is known that bladder cells can be found in urine samples which potentially could be used for early detection of bladder cancer. Raman spectroscopy is a powerful non-invasive tool for accessing biochemical information of cells. Combined with laser tweezers, to allow isolation of single cells, Raman spectroscopy has been used to characterise a number of bladder cells that might be found in a urine sample. Using principal component-canonical variates analysis (PC-CVA) and k-fold validation, the results shows that the invasive bladder cancer cells can be identified with accuracy greater than 87%. This demonstrates the potential of developing an early detection method that identifies the invasive bladder cancer cells in urine samples.