Objective: To explore whether fluorescence emission spectroscopy of blood components can differentiate normal from early and advanced stages of breast cancer using stepwise discriminant analysis.
Materials and methods: 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.
Results: 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.
Conclusion: 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.