Determination of Heavy Metals in Cancerous and Healthy Colon Tissues using Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy and its Cross-Validation with ICP-AES Method

Abstract Certain types of cancer deaths are widespread due to the diagnostic complexities at the early stages. Recent studies revealed that the bio-accumulated heavy metals (act as pro-carcinogens) in the human colon cause strong interactions with the nuclear proteins, leading to the DNA damages and repair processes inhibition, resulting in the cancers. Most of the conventional detection techniques suffer from the insensitiveness, cost-intensiveness, imprecision, slowness, cumbersomeness of sample preparation, and conflicting outcomes. To surmount these shortcomings an accurate, reliable, and rapid detection technique is essential for the early diagnostic and prevention of heavy metals accumulation induced colon cancers. This will enable not only to classify the malignant and non-malignant cells but can differentiate the proteins from abnormal cellular morphology. Using the indigenously developed fast and accurate (calibration-free) laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), we analyzed several cancerous and normal colon tissues collected from the colon cancer infected patients aged 40 — 60 years. The results showed the presence of carcinogenic heavy metals including lead (Pb), chromium (Cr), and mercury (Hg) in the malignant colon tissues, while the healthy tissues were devoid of these elements. The concentrations of Pb, Cr and Hg in the cancerous samples were discerned to be 3.1, 13.4 and 7.1 µg/L, respectively. Furthermore, the performance accuracy of the LIBS technique was validated by comparing the results obtained from the standard inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES). It was established that the LIBS analysis is useful for the speedy, precise and early detection of the heavy metals amassed malignant colon tissues, thereby saving millions of lives by promoting the chances for cancer cure.