Abstract
To explore whether fluorescence emission spectroscopy of blood components can differentiate normal from early and advanced stages of breast cancer using stepwise discriminant analysis.
Fluorescence emission spectra were measured for blood components of three different groups: 35 normal controls, 28 with early-stage, and 18 with advanced-stage breast cancer. The data from the spectra were subjected to Fisher's linear discriminant analysis. Classification accuracy, specificity, and sensitivity of the technique were calculated for breast cancer diagnosis.
Fluorescence emission spectra of blood components accurately distinguished normal from early-stage and advanced-stage breast cancer in 91.4% of original cases and 90.1% for cross-validated cases. The sensitivity and specificity were 80.4% and 100%, respectively, in distinguishing subjects with breast cancer from normal controls.
Our statistical evaluation indicates that porphyrin in blood can be used as a reliable tumor marker. Fluorescence emission spectroscopy of blood components and statistical evaluations should be further investigated for a variety of tumors.