Comparison of hair medulla from esophageal cancer patients and healthy persons using synchrotron radiation infrared microspectroscopy

This work aimed to investigate the feasibility of distinguishing esophageal cancer patients from healthy persons by IR spectra of hair medulla. SR-IR microspectroscopy was used to compare the differences in hair medulla from esophageal cancer patients and healthy persons. The results demonstrated that esophageal cancer might cause significant change of proteins content/structure in hair medulla. Moreover, combined with discriminant analysis, IR spectra of hair medulla could distinguish between esophageal cancer patients and healthy persons with the sensitivity 89.74%, the specificity 87.50%, the positive predictive value 89.74% and the accuracy 88.73%. Taken together, the results indicated that IR spectra of hair medulla might be helpful for early esophageal cancer diagnosis.