High Sensitivity and Specificity in Human Breast Cancer Detection with Near-Infrared Imaging

Breast cancer remains a significant worldwide health problem, despite the fact that early detection is associated with excellent survival rates. Currently, a substantial proportion of breast cancers are not detected using routine screening. Therefore, there is a need to identify a technology that can improve the precision and accuracy of early breast cancer detection. Biomarkers are attractive in that they can potentially detect early cancers with high sensitivity, while distinguishing between benign disease and invasive cancers. Many commonly used serum biomarkers have limited use in screening assays for breast cancer as single agents due to the heterogeneous nature of breast cancer. However, the use of protein panels that detect multiple serum biomarkers offer the potential for enhanced sensitivity and specificity in a clinical setting. Recently, a serum biomarker test comprising five serum biomarkers for breast cancer was clinically validated and showed high sensitivity and specificity. Additional panels have been developed that combine serum protein biomarkers (SPB) and tumor-associated autoantibodies (TAb) to further enhance the clinical utility of the assay. Serum biomarkers are currently not the standard of care and are not recommended in any detection guidelines. However, tumor biomarkers are used in the breast cancer setting to determine the course of care. The purpose of this article is to review recent advances in SPB, TAb, and biomarkers used in breast cancer detection to provide a perspective on how these technologies may offer benefit when combined with current imaging modalities.

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Nitrogen-Doped Titanium Dioxide Nanoparticles Modified by an Electron Beam for Improving Human Breast Cancer Detection by Raman Spectroscopy: A Preliminary Study

Diagnostics ◽

10.3390/diagnostics10100757 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (10) ◽

pp. 757

Author(s):

Jakub Surmacki

Keyword(s):

Breast Cancer ◽

Raman Spectroscopy ◽

Electron Beam ◽

Cancer Detection ◽

Human Breast Cancer ◽

Breast Cancer Detection ◽

Raman Signal ◽

Human Breast ◽

Doped Tio2 ◽

Nitrogen Doped

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) is commonly used as a pigment in paints, paper products, polymer compositions, and cosmetic products, and even as a food additive or drug coating material. In recent times, it has also been used in photovoltaic cells, semiconductors, biomedical devices, and air purification. In this paper, the potential application of nitrogen-doped TiO2 nanoparticles modified by an electron beam for improving human breast cancer detection by Raman spectroscopy is presented. Raman spectroscopy (RS) is a promising noninvasive analytical technique in cancer detection that enables us to retrieve a molecular signature of the biochemical composition of cancerous tissue. However, RS still has some challenges in signal detection, mainly related to strong concurrent background fluorescence from the analyzed tissue. The Raman signal scattering is several orders of magnitude smaller than the fluorescence intensity, and strong fluorescence masks a much weaker Raman signal. The Raman results demonstrate that the N-doped TiO2 electron beam-irradiated nanoparticles amplify the Raman scattering. The intrinsic properties of the adsorbed molecules from human breast tissue and the surface properties of the N-doped TiO2 electron beam-irradiated nanoparticles (the excited electron–hole pair at the surface) have a significant effect on the enhanced Raman signal intensity.

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