Utility of Raman Spectroscopy in Pulmonary Medicine

The Raman effect, or as per its original description, "modified scattering", is an observation that the number of scattered light waves shifts after photons make nonelastic contact with a molecule. This effect allows Raman spectroscopy to be very useful in various fields. Although it is well known that Raman spectroscopy could be very beneficial in medicine as a diagnostic tool, there are not many applications of Raman spectroscopy in pulmonary medicine. Mostly tumor tissue, sputum and saliva have been used as material for analysis in respiratory medicine. Raman spectroscopy has shown promising results in malignancy recognition and even tumor staging. Saliva is a biological fluid that could be used as a reliable biomarker of the physiological state of the human body, and is easily acquired. Saliva analysis using Raman spectroscopy has the potential to be a relatively inexpensive and quick tool that could be used for diagnostic, screening and phenotyping purposes. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a growing cause of disability and death, and its phenotyping using saliva analysis via Raman spectroscopy has a great potential to be a dependable tool to, among other things, help reduce hospitalizations and disease burden. Although existing methods are effective and generally available, Raman spectroscopy has the benefit of being quick and noninvasive, potentially reducing healthcare costs and workload.