Probing diseased skin with FT-Raman spectroscopy

Healthy and abnormal, human skin has been examined using Fourier transform (FT) Raman spectroscopy. The molecular basis of alterations In this tissue have been probed with the aim of providing a tool to aid in clinical diagnosis of skin disorders. Intact human stratum corneum show spectral features of keratin (e. g. the C=O stretching amide I band at 1651 cm(-1)) and the lipids (e.g. the CH stretching made around 3000-2800 cm(-1); C-C stretching modes around 1200-1000 cm(-1)). Spectra from callus and psoriatic tissue show that the keratin component is essentially intact and is similar to that in the normal tissue. However, the abnormal skin shows a significant depletion of the lipoidal component, which correlates with clinical observations of an increase in permeability and the hyper-proliferative nature of these conditions. Verrucal tissue again shows some alterations to the lipoidal fraction of the tissue.