Application of Raman spectroscopy in skin diseases

Raman spectroscopy technology has been applied in various fields, such as molecular recognition, disease diagnosis and biological analysis, due to its unique advantages of non-invasiveness, high automation, rapid and in-situ analysis. This technology bears great potential for dermatological researches ranging from the analysis of the physiological component distribution in skin tissues and diagnosis of pathological states up to biopharmaceutical researches, such as drug penetration kinetics within different tissue layers, as well as ranging from the distinction between normal skin cells and malignant tumor cells up to researches of the pathogenesis of skin diseases and quantitative analysis of gene mutations in atopic dermatitis and so on. In addition, there is a wide range of skin diseases, and the diagnosis of many skin diseases requires biopsy pathology. Raman spectroscopy can be a non-invasive way for patients to reduce the pain during performing skin biopsy. Key words: Spectrum analysis, Raman; Skin diseases; Skin neoplasms; Early diagnosis; Melanoma