Clinical Applications of Raman Spectroscopy in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases. A Review.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Inflammatory bowel diseases are still difficult to diagnose and differentiate in some cases despite the serological, imaging, endoscopic and histopathological armamentarium. Raman spectroscopy is a technique that could help with these shortcomings. The aim of this paper is to present the accuracy of Raman spectroscopy in the diagnosis and monitoring of patients with inflammatory bowel diseases.

METHODS: We identified the published manuscripts and abstracts up to the 31st of December 2017 by a systematic search of Medline, Embase, Cochrane and other trial registries.

RESULTS: Eight publications were found, showing sensitivities and specificities of Raman spectroscopy in diagnosing and differentiating inflammatory bowel diseases ranging from 82 to 99% and 57 to 99%, respectively, and accuracies of up to 95%.

CONCLUSION: The technique has so far proven its potential in the positive and differential diagnosis of Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis, allowing for very rapid results with high sensitivity and specificity.