Distinguishing malignant from benign microscopic skin lesions using desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry imaging
Abstract
Timely detection of microscopic tumors is of utmost importance in cancer diagnostics. We show that desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry imaging (DESI-MSI) can successfully locate microscopic aggregates of a common skin cancer, basal cell carcinoma (BCC), and distinguish them from adjacent normal skin. DESI-MSI unveils an altered chemical profile in BCC region, including lipids and metabolites, and does not rely on visual identification of histopathologic features. We processed specimens from 86 Mohs micrographic surgeries, with nearly 60% of tumors sized less than 1 mm in diameter. By applying the statistical method of least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (Lasso) on collected DESI-MSI data, we were able to achieve up to 94.1% diagnostic accuracy compared with pathological evaluation of BCC.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Jun 04, 2018
- Source ID
- 10.1073/pnas.1803733115
Entities
People
- Albert S. Chiou
- Jean Y. Tang
- Katherine Margulis
- Richard Zare
- Robert J. Tibshirani
- Sumaira Z. Aasi
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- Stanford University