Department of Biomedical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA.
Dis Colon Rectum. 2011 Jan;54(1):48-53. doi: 10.1007/DCR.0b013e3181fcf68d.
Ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease are 2 distinct forms of IBD that can overlap radiologically, endoscopically, and pathologically. This difficulty complicates surgical options. The development of new technologies providing accurate diagnosis of IBD is needed. Raman spectroscopy is a noninvasive method that uses the intrinsic properties of tissue and that tissue's vibrational energy in reaction to light.
We hypothesize that Raman spectroscopy can detect the structural and compositional changes that occur in the tissue during the development of inflammatory bowel disease, and thus may offer increased diagnostic certainty in the differentiation between Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.
Fresh frozen colon tissue biopsies from patients with ulcerative colitis (n = 12) and with Crohn's disease (n = 9) were measured in vitro using a custom-designed Raman fiber-optic probe. For spectra collection, the probe was placed in gentle contact with the mucosa surface for 3 seconds, with excitation power at 150 mW. Five spectra were acquired from each biopsy to increase the signal-to-noise ratio and to ensure repeatability of data collection. Mean spectra were analyzed for peak difference and molecular origin.
Significant difference was observed between the spectra from each disease in the spectral regions assigned to nucleic acid, phenylalanine, and lipids. Tissue samples from patients with ulcerative colitis demonstrated higher content of lipid and lower amount of phenylalanine and nucleic acid. These characteristic Raman features could serve as spectral markers that can potentially be applied to distinguish ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease.
This study presents the only application of Raman spectroscopy in the diagnosis of inflammatory bowel disease. The feasibility of this technique in differentially detecting molecular alterations in ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease has been demonstrated, indicating the potential to improve diagnostic accuracy of inflammatory bowel disease.
溃疡性结肠炎和克罗恩病是两种不同形式的炎症性肠病，它们在影像学、内镜和病理学上可能会重叠。这种复杂性使手术选择变得复杂。需要开发新的技术来提供对炎症性肠病的准确诊断。拉曼光谱是一种非侵入性的方法，它利用组织的固有特性和组织对光的振动能量。
我们假设拉曼光谱可以检测到在炎症性肠病发展过程中组织发生的结构和组成变化，因此可能会提高对克罗恩病和溃疡性结肠炎的鉴别诊断的确定性。
使用定制设计的光纤拉曼探针对溃疡性结肠炎（n = 12）和克罗恩病（n = 9）患者的新鲜冷冻结肠组织活检进行了体外测量。为了进行光谱采集，将探头轻轻放置在粘膜表面接触 3 秒钟，激发功率为 150mW。从每个活检中采集 5 个光谱，以增加信噪比并确保数据采集的可重复性。对平均光谱进行峰差和分子起源分析。
在所分配的核酸、苯丙氨酸和脂质光谱区域中，观察到来自每种疾病的光谱之间存在显著差异。溃疡性结肠炎患者的组织样本显示脂质含量较高，苯丙氨酸和核酸含量较低。这些特征拉曼特征可以作为潜在的光谱标记物，可用于区分溃疡性结肠炎和克罗恩病。
本研究首次将拉曼光谱应用于炎症性肠病的诊断。该技术在区分溃疡性结肠炎和克罗恩病中检测分子变化的可行性已经得到证明，表明有可能提高炎症性肠病的诊断准确性。
