Development of non-invasive diagnosis based on FTIR spectroscopy

Abstract

Numerous illnesses progress silently, often reaching a critical stage by the time symptoms appear, making medical intervention difficult. While there exist sophisticated clinical techniques for precise disease detection, they are often invasive procedure and as a rule of thumb is used only with definite symptomatic cases. In addition, the extreme clinical costs prevent a large population from taking advantage of contemporary medical facilities. A non-invasive, economically feasible screening method that detects diseases even in their pre-symptomatic stages may overcome many critical challenges in health and medicine. Utilizing vibrational spectroscopy to identify volatile metabolites offers promise as such a non-invasive, cost-effective diagnostic tool. The article outlines the potential of vibrational spectroscopy for non-invasive diagnostics and proposes a method for its clinical implementation.