Raman Spectroscopy Quantification of anti-cancer drug via SERS mapping

Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) can improve clinical care when using drugs with pharmacokinetic variability and a narrow therapeutic window. Rapid, reliable, and easy-to-use detection methods are required in order to decrease the time of analysis and can also enable TDM in resource-limited settings or even at the bedside. Monitoring methotrexate (MTX), an anticancer drug, is critical since it is needed to follow the drug clearance rate and decide how to administer the rescue drug, leucovorin (LV), in order to avoid toxicity and even death. Quantification of anti-cancer drug via SERS mapping is challenging Raman microscopy applications that typically require research grade systems with deep cooling sensors.

Raman spectroscopy provides a unique opportunity to study the chemical composition of materials at the microscale. Such capabilities come at the cost of extremely high requirements for instrumentation: lasers with stabilization of wavelength and power, low noise spectroscopic sensors, and a large clear aperture of spectrometer’s optics. Therefore, demanding Raman spectroscopy and microscopy applications usually require high-end, bulky, and costly Raman instrumentation.

Lightnovo ApS found possible solutions to the most critical Raman miniaturization challenges: need for laser temperature and power stabilization, reduction of sensor dark noise, compensation on pixel-to-pixel quantum