Diagnosing Iron Deficiency Anemia by Raman Spectroscopy Analysis

Abstract

This work proposed the diagnosis of iron deficiency anemia (IDA) in human blood caused by iron (Fe) deficiency, which is the most common nutritional deficiency, by means of Raman spectroscopy. Total blood samples from patients diagnosed with IDA, as well as from normal subjects (HbA) were obtained and submitted to Raman spectroscopy (830 nm, 150 mW, 400–1800 cm−1 spectral range, 2 cm−1 resolution) through a Raman probe and an aluminum sample holder. Then, the normalized spectra were submitted to discriminant analysis based on partial least squares (PLS-DA) and principal components analysis (PCA-DA). The comparison between the spectra of HbA and IDA showed very similar spectral features, and an exploratory analysis based on the scores and loadings of PCA showed that the spectral differences appear in the peaks at 971, 1237, 1374 and 1551 cm−1, which can be attributed to hemoglobin molecule. Discriminant analysis using PLS-DA and PCA-DA showed that the IDA spectra could be separated from the HbA spectra with 88.3% and 81.7% of accuracy, for the PLS and PCA respectively. It was concluded that the iron depletion of red blood cells can be identified by the Raman spectroscopy and these depletion could be used to accurately discriminate these IDA samples from the normal HbA.