Raman spectroscopy has strong potential for providing non-invasion diagnosis of cancers. In this paper, micro-Raman spectroscopy is used to diagnose one most common liver cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The statistical analyzes, including t-test, principal component analysis (PCA), and linear discriminant analysis (LDA), are performed on the Raman spectra of malignant and normal hepatocytes. The t-test-LDA results show that the 786- and 1004-cm^{-1} bands of the malignant and normal hepatocytes are significantly different, and PCA-LDA results show an overall accuracy of 100% for the Raman spectroscopic identification of normal and malignant hepatocytes in our experiment.

To study the efficacy and side effects of antitumor drug by the method of Raman spectroscopy, the cancerous (SGC-7901) and normal (GES-1) gastric cells were treated with 0, 25-, 100-, and 200-mg/L 5-fluorouracil (5-Fu) for 24 h, respectively, then Raman spectra of cells were recorded. The excitation wavelength was 514.5 nm and the Raman spectra in the region of 500-1800 cm-1 were recorded. For the gastric cancer cells, as the concentration of 5-Fu increases, the band at 1094 cm-1 attributed to the symmetric stretching vibration mode of PO^(2)_(-) in the DNA backbone gradually decreases, and the intensity ratio of the band at 1315 cm-1 to that at 1340 cm-1 (I1315/I1340) shows the ascending trend, and the ratio of the band area at 1655 cm-1 to that at 1450 cm-1 (A1655/A1450) shows the slight ascending trend. For the normal gastric cells, these peaks also appear changes, however, the changes are weaker than those for the cancer cells. In SGC-7901 cells, 5-Fu can interfere with the DNA synthesis and result in the reduction of the DNA content. Besides, it can affect the unsaturation degree of the hydrocarbon chains and alter the external environment of guanine and adenine residues in cancer cells. The changes of Raman spectra for normal gastric cells reveal the side effect of 5-Fu.

Micro-Raman spectroscopy is employed to identify the normal and malignant human stomach cells. For the cancer cell, the reduced intensity of the Raman peak at 1250 cm^(-1) indicates that the protein secondary structure transforms from β-sheet or disordered structures to α-helical, while the increased intensity of the symmetric PO2 stretching vibration mode at 1094 cm^(-1) shows the increased DNA content. The ratio of the intensity at 1315 cm^(-1) to that at 1340 cm^(-1) reduces from 1.8 for the normal cell to 1.1 for the cancer cell in the course of canceration, and the ratio of the intensity at 1655 cm^(-1) to that at 1450 cm^(-1) increases from 1.00 for the cancer cell to 1.26 for the normal cell which indicates that the canceration of stomach cell may induce saturation of the lipid chain.