Near‐infrared Raman spectroscopic characterization of salivary metabolites in the discrimination of normal from oral premalignant and malignant conditions

In the present study, Raman spectroscopy has been employed in the discrimination of the saliva of normal subjects from patients with oral submucous fibrosis and oral squamous cell carcinomaat 785‐nm excitation. From the spectral signatures, prominent difference between normal and abnormal group because of variations in metabolic and pathological conditions of the subjects was observed. Principal component analysis coupled with linear discriminant analysis yielded a diagnostic sensitivity of 96.4 and 93.8% and a specificity of 70.2 and 95.7% in the classification of normal from premalignant and normal from malignant, respectively, confirming the efficacy of Raman spectroscopy in the classification of normal and oral abnormalities.