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Abstract

A method for determining if a tissue is a malignant tumor tissue, a benign tumor tissue, or a normal or benign tissue. The present method is based on the discovery that, when irradiated with a beam of infrared, monochromatic light, malignant tumor tissue, benign tumor tissue, and normal or benign tissue produce distinguishable Raman spectra. For human breast tissue, some salient differences in the respective Raman spectra are the presence of four Raman bands at a Raman shift of about 1078, 1300, 1445, and 1651 cm.sup.-1 for normal or benign tissue, the presence of three Raman bands at a Raman shift of about 1240, 1445, and 1659 cm.sup.-1 for benign tumor tissue, and the presence of two Raman bands at a Raman shift of about 1445 and 1651 cm.sup.-1 for malignant tumor tissue. In addition, it was discovered that for human breast tissue the ratio of intensities of the Raman bands at a Raman shift of about 1445 and 1659 cm.sup.-1 is about 1.25 for normal or benign tissue, about 0.93 for benign tumor tissue, and about 0.87 for malignant tumor tissue.

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