Erratum: Raman spectral post-processing for oral tissue discrimination - a step for an automatized diagnostic system: erratum

Providing potential solutions by using FT-IR spectroscopy for biofluid analysis: Clinical impact of optical screening and diagnostic tests

BACKGROUND

Currently, the potential of FT-IR spectroscopy for rapid diagnosis of many pathologies has been demonstrated by numerous research studies including those targeting COVID-19 detection. However, the number of clinicians aware of this potential and who are willing to use spectroscopy in their clinics and hospitals is still negligible. In addition, lack of awareness creates a huge gap between clinicians and researchers involved in clinical translation of current FT-IR technology hence hindering initiatives to bring basic and applied research together for the direct benefit of patients.

METHODS

Knowledge and medical training on FT-IR on the side of clinicians should be one of the first steps to be able to integrate it into the list of complementary exams which may be requested by health professionals. Countless FT-IR applications could have a life-changing impact on patients' lives, especially screening and diagnostic tests involving biofluids such as blood, saliva and urine which are routinely non-invasively or minimally-invasively.

RESULTS

Blood may be the most difficult to obtain by the invasive method of collection, but much can be evaluated in its components, and areas such as hematology, infectiology, oncology and endocrinology can be directly benefited. Urine with a relatively simple collection method can provide pertinent information from the entire urinary system, including the actual condition of the kidneys. Saliva collection can be simpler for the patient and can provide information on diseases affecting the mouth and digestive system and can be used to diagnose diseases such as oral cancer in its early-stages. An unavoidable second step is the active involvement of industries to design robust and portable instruments for specific purposes, as the medical community requires user-friendly instruments of advanced computational algorithms. A third step resides in the legal situation involving the global use of the technique as a new diagnostic modality.

CONCLUSIONS

It is important to note that decentralized funds for variety of technologies hinders the training of clinical and medical professionals for the use of newly arising technologies and affect the engagement of these professionals with technology developers. As a result of decentralized funding, research efforts are spread out over a range of technologies which take a long time to get validated and translated to the clinic. Partnership over similar groups of technologies and efforts to test the same technologies while overcoming barriers posed to technology validation in different areas around the globe may benefit the clinical/medical, research and industry community globally.

FTIR spectroscopy as a point of care diagnostic tool for diabetes and periodontitis: A saliva analysis approach

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a general term for heterogeneous metabolic disorders whose main characteristic is chronic hyperglycemia. Considering that conventional diagnostic methods are currently unable of early DM detection and the number of diabetic patients has been increasing worldwide, there is a clinical need for novel diagnostic approaches. Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy technique an alternative non-invasive diagnostic method for real-time evaluation of biofluids such as saliva. This study aims evaluate the feasibility of diagnosing diabetes and periodontitis through saliva samples based on their FT-IR spectra. Our first collection and spectral analysis of samples was a pilot study and comprised a total of 23 patients, 2 healthy, 9 with diabetes and 12 with diabetes and periodontitis. By using weighted KNN as classifier, we have obtained an area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic curve of 0.92 and 0.95 when considering the diabetes or diabetes + periodontitis groups as positive groups, respectively.

Rapid diagnosis of COVID-19 using FT-IR ATR spectroscopy and machine learning

Early diagnosis of COVID-19 in suspected patients is essential for contagion control and damage reduction strategies. We investigated the applicability of attenuated total reflection (ATR) Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy associated with machine learning in oropharyngeal swab suspension fluid to predict COVID-19 positive samples. The study included samples of 243 patients from two Brazilian States. Samples were transported by using different viral transport mediums (liquid 1 or 2). Clinical COVID-19 diagnosis was performed by the RT-PCR. We built a classification model based on partial least squares (PLS) associated with cosine k-nearest neighbours (KNN). Our analysis led to 84% and 87% sensitivity, 66% and 64% specificity, and 76.9% and 78.4% accuracy for samples of liquids 1 and 2, respectively. Based on this proof-of-concept study, we believe this method could offer a simple, label-free, cost-effective solution for high-throughput screening of suspect patients for COVID-19 in health care centres and emergency departments.

Rapid diagnosis of COVID-19 using FT-IR ATR spectroscopy and machine learning

Early diagnosis of COVID-19 in suspected patients is essential for contagion control and damage reduction strategies. We investigated the applicability of attenuated total reflection (ATR) Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy associated with machine learning in oropharyngeal swab suspension fluid to predict COVID-19 positive samples. The study included samples of 243 patients from two Brazilian States. Samples were transported by using different viral transport mediums (liquid 1 or 2). Clinical COVID-19 diagnosis was performed by the RT-PCR. We built a classification model based on partial least squares (PLS) associated with cosine k-nearest neighbours (KNN). Our analysis led to 84% and 87% sensitivity, 66% and 64% specificity, and 76.9% and 78.4% accuracy for samples of liquids 1 and 2, respectively. Based on this proof-of-concept study, we believe this method could offer a simple, label-free, cost-effective solution for high-throughput screening of suspect patients for COVID-19 in health care centres and emergency departments.

Diagnosis of Systemic Diseases Using Infrared Spectroscopy: Detection of Iron Overload in Plasma-Preliminary Study

Despite the important role of iron in cellular homeostasis, iron overload (IO) is associated with systemic and tissue deposits which damage several organs. In order to reduce the impact caused by IO, invasive diagnosis exams (e.g., biopsies) and minimally invasive methods were developed including computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging. However, current diagnostic methods are still time-consuming and expensive. A cost-effective solution is using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) for real-time and molecular-sensitive biofluid analysis during conventional laboratory exams. In this study, we performed the first evaluation of the accuracy of FTIR for IO diagnosis. The study was performed by collecting FTIR spectra of plasma samples of five rats intravenously injected with iron-dextran and five control rats. We developed a classification model based on principal component analysis and supervised methods including J48, random forest, multilayer perceptron, and radial basis function network. We achieved 100% accuracy for the classification of the IO status and provided a list of possible biomolecules related to the vibrational modes detected. In this preliminary study, we give a first step towards real-time diagnosis for acute IO or intoxication. Furthermore, we have expanded the literature knowledge regarding the pathophysiological changes induced by iron overload.

Evaluation of the Whitening Effectiveness of Violet Illumination Alone or Combined with Hydrogen Peroxide Gel

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of the whitening and washing steps of a treatment using violet illumination (VI) alone or combined with hydrogen peroxide gel. In addition, we evaluated the color change after cleaning the tooth with and without mineral oil. Methods: First, 16 bovine teeth were extracted and stored in 5% thymol solution. Next, the teeth were collected and cleaned. Then, the teeth were stained with instant coffee solution for 24 h. The teeth were divided in four groups: control, VI without 35% hydrogen peroxide gel (VI), VI with 35% hydrogen peroxide gel (VI + gel), and VI without 35% hydrogen peroxide gel and cleaned with mineral oil before washing (VI + oil). Results: The whitening treatment VI + gel was able to completely restore the teeth whiteness and make the teeth 31.2% less yellow than prior coffee staining. The VI + oil treatment led to about 3.7 times the whiteness and yellowness changes observed in the VI treatment and restored 51% of the whiteness lost by staining. Conclusions: The VI + gel treatment can be recommended against coffee stains and should be further investigated for other types of tooth stains. In addition, cleaning the tooth surface with mineral oil could be an alternative to increase the performance of whitening treatments.

New insights of Raman spectroscopy for oral clinical applications

Oral injuries are currently diagnosed by histopathological analysis of biopsy, which is an invasive procedure and does not give immediate results.