Early detection of colorectal cancer relapse by infrared spectroscopy in “normal” anastomosis tissue

Colorectal cancer is one of the most aggressive cancers usually occurring in people above the age of 50 years. In the United States, colorectal cancer is the third most diagnosed cancer. The American Cancer Society has estimated 96,830 new cases of colon cancer and 40,000 new cases of rectal cancer in 2014 in the United States. According to the literature, up to 55% of colorectal cancer patients experience a recurrence within five years from the time of surgery. Relapse of colorectal cancer has a deep influence on the quality of patient life. Infrared (IR) spectroscopy has been widely used in medicine. It is a noninvasive, nondestructive technique that can detect changes in cells and tissues that are caused by different disorders, such as cancer. Abnormalities in the colonic crypts, which are not detectable using standard histopathological methods, could be determined using IR spectroscopic methods. The IR measurements were performed on formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded colorectal tissues from eight patients (one control, four local recurrences, three distant recurrences). A total of 128 crypts were measured. Our results showed the possibility of differentiating among control, local, and distant recurrence crypts with more than a 92% success rate using spectra measured from the crypts’ middle sites.