High-Resolution Terahertz Spectroscopy for Medical Diagnostics

The metabolomics-based approach to diagnostics and therapy monitoring is a fast-emerging trend in modern medicine. Terahertz nonstationary spectroscopy based on the induction and disintegration of freely decaying polarization in the gas mixture during the interaction of radiation with molecules at resonance frequencies is a high-sensitivity method for studying multicomponent gas mixtures, which is promising for identifying metabolites in the thermal decomposition products of biological samples. The paper presents the results of the application of high-resolution terahertz spectroscopy to the study of biological samples taken from patients with certain diseases (pathologically changed tissues of ear-nose-throat organs and similar pathologic tissues formed in other life support systems) to search for characteristic sets of metabolites characterizing the pathology. The world's first measurements of the spectra of pathologic samples of cysts, formed in different life support systems, were carried out, which made it possible to identify similar substances in tissues having the same pathology.