Potential Role of Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy as a Screening Approach for Breast Cancer.

Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease, and its spread involves a succession of clinical and pathological stages. Screening is predominantly based on mammography, which has critical limitations related to the effectiveness and production of false-positive or false-negative results, generating discomfort and low adherence. In this context, infrared with attenuated total reflection Fourier transform (ATR- FTIR) emerges as a non-destructive sample tool, non-invasive, label-free, low operating cost, requiring only a small amount of sample, including liquid plasma samples. We sought to evaluate the clinical applicability of ATR-FTIR in breast cancer screening. Results: ATR-FTIR spectroscopy through its highest potential spectral biomarker could distinguish, by liquid plasma biopsy, breast cancer patients and healthy controls, obtaining a sensitivity of 97%, specificity of 93%, ROC curve of 97% and a prediction accuracy of 94%. The main variance between the groups was mainly in the band 1511 cm -1 of the control group, 1502 and 1515 cm -1 of the cancer group, which are the peaks of the bands referring to proteins and amide II. Conclusion: ATR-FTIR spectroscopy have demonstrated to be a promising tool to breast cancer screening, given the time efficiency, cost of the approach, and high ability to distinguish between liquid plasma samples between healthy breast cancer and controls.