Development of deep learning algorithms to discriminate giant cell tumors of bone from adjacent normal tissues by confocal Raman spectroscopy.

Journal: The Analyst
Published Date:

Abstract

Raman spectroscopy is a non-destructive analysis technique that provides detailed information about the chemical structure of tumors. Raman spectra of 52 giant cell tumors of bone (GCTB) and 21 adjacent normal tissues of formalin-fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) and frozen specimens were obtained using a confocal Raman spectrometer and analyzed with machine learning and deep learning algorithms. We discovered characteristic Raman shifts in the GCTB specimens. They were assigned to phenylalanine and tyrosine. Based on the spectroscopic data, classification algorithms including support vector machine, k-nearest neighbors and long short-term memory (LSTM) were successfully applied to discriminate GCTB from adjacent normal tissues of both the FFPE and frozen specimens, with the accuracy ranging from 82.8% to 94.5%. Importantly, our LSTM algorithm showed the best performance in the discrimination of the frozen specimens, with a sensitivity and specificity of 93.9% and 95.1% respectively, and the AUC was 0.97. The results of our study suggest that confocal Raman spectroscopy accomplished by the LSTM network could non-destructively evaluate a tumor margin by its inherent biochemical specificity which may allow intraoperative assessment of the adequacy of tumor clearance.

Authors

  • Carol P Y Lau
    Institute for Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
  • Wenao Ma
  • Kwan Yau Law
    The Hong Kong Institute of Biotechnology Limited, Hong Kong.
  • Maribel D Lacambra
    Department of Anatomical and Cellular Pathology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
  • Kwok Chuen Wong
    Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. kumta@cuhk.edu.hk.
  • Chien Wei Lee
    Institute for Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
  • Oscar K Lee
    Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. kumta@cuhk.edu.hk.
  • Qi Dou
  • Shekhar M Kumta
    Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. kumta@cuhk.edu.hk.