Metabolites (Jan 2022)

Metabolic Profile Characterization of Different Thyroid Nodules Using FTIR Spectroscopy: A Review

  • Vanessa Neto,
  • Sara Esteves-Ferreira,
  • Isabel Inácio,
  • Márcia Alves,
  • Rosa Dantas,
  • Idália Almeida,
  • Joana Guimarães,
  • Teresa Azevedo,
  • Alexandra Nunes

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/metabo12010053
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 1
p. 53

Abstract

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Thyroid cancer’s incidence has increased in the last decades, and its diagnosis can be a challenge. Further and complementary testing based in biochemical alterations may be important to correctly identify thyroid cancer and prevent unnecessary surgery. Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy is a metabolomic technique that has already shown promising results in cancer metabolome analysis of neoplastic thyroid tissue, in the identification and classification of prostate tumor tissues and of breast carcinoma, among others. This work aims to gather and discuss published information on the ability of FTIR spectroscopy to be used in metabolomic studies of the thyroid, including discriminating between benign and malignant thyroid samples and grading and classifying different types of thyroid tumors.

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