Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. May 15, 2016; 8(5): 427-438
Published online May 15, 2016. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v8.i5.427
Role of Raman spectroscopy and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy in colorectal cancer
Cerys A Jenkins, Paul D Lewis, Peter R Dunstan, Dean A Harris
Cerys A Jenkins, Paul D Lewis, Dean A Harris, Swansea University Medical School, Swansea University, Swansea SA2 8PP, United Kingdom
Peter R Dunstan, Department of Physics, College of Science, Center for Nanohealth, Swansea University, Swansea SA2 8PP, United Kingdom
Dean A Harris, Department of Colorectal Surgery, Singleton Hospital, Swansea SA2 8QA, United Kingdom
Author contributions: All authors contributed equally to the writing and proof reading of this paper.
Supported by Cancer Research Wales, No. 248767.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors report no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dean A Harris, MD, FRCS, MB, ChB, Department of Colorectal Surgery, Singleton Hospital, Sketty Lane, Swansea SA2 8QA, United Kingdom. dean.a.harris@wales.nhs.uk
Telephone: +44-1792-285459
Received: June 27, 2015
Peer-review started: June 30, 2015
First decision: November 6, 2015
Revised: November 24, 2015
Accepted: March 7, 2016
Article in press: March 9, 2016
Published online: May 15, 2016
Core Tip

Core tip: This review focuses of the current role of Raman spectroscopy and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) in clinical applications of colorectal cancer. This includes a review of the current research into in vivo endoscopic Raman probes, non-destructive analysis of biofluids and the use of SERS in order to detect low concentration analytes that previously could not be detected with Raman spectroscopy. Both the advantages and disadvantages of the technology are discussed along with possible avenues of future research.