Fiber attenuated total reflection infrared spectroscopy of kidney tissue during live surgery

More than 90% of solid kidney tumors are cancerous and have to be treated by surgical resection where surgical outcomes and patient prognosis are dependent on the tumor discrimination. The development of alternative approaches based on a new generation of fiber attenuated total reflection (ATR) probes could aid tumor identification even under intra‐surgical conditions. Herein, fiber ATR IR spectroscopy is employed to distinguish normal and cancerous kidney tissues. Freshly resected tissue samples from thirty four patients are investigated under nearly native conditions. Spectral marker bands that allow a reliable discrimination between tumor and normal tissue is identified by a supervised classification algorithm. The absorbance values of the bands at 1025, 1155 and 1240 cm−1 assigned to glycogen and fructose 1,6‐bisphosphatase are used as the clearest markers for the tissue discrimination. Absorbance threshold values for tumor and normal tissue are determined by discriminant analysis. This new approach allows the surgeon to make a clinical diagnosis.