Cervical cancer is the fourth most common women’s cancer in the world, and unfortunately mainly affects younger women. Current methods for screening and diagnosis of cervical cancer and precancer are therefore limited, and there has been much interest in the use of optical spectroscopic approaches, such as Raman spectroscopy, to provide an objective test based on the biochemical fingerprint of the cervical cells or tissues. Raman spectroscopy is based on inelastic scattering, which has been used to study the biomolecular fingerprint of cells or tissues. It involves shining a laser on a sample and measuring the scattered photons. When a photon collides on a molecule, it either retains its energy (known as Rayleigh scattering) or exchanges energy with the molecule (known as Raman scattering).

| Year | Authors (Research Group) | Sample/Patient Numbers | Sample Type/Sample Prep/Substrate | Raman Parameters | Data Analysis Methodology | Main Findings | Reference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | Vargis et al. (Mahadevan-Jansen group) | 50 patient samples—25 HPV negative and 25 HPV positive | Centrifugation and washing with sterile water Pellets of exfoliated cells on calcium fluoride slides |
Renishaw Invia Raman microscope 785 nm laser, ∼30 mW at the sample 50X/0.75 NA objective lens Spectral resolution ∼6 cm−1 45 to 60 s acquisition, 3 accumulations |
Sparse multinomial logistic regression (SMLR) | Discrimination of HPV-positive and HPV-negative cytology samples Spectral differences: lipid, amino acid, protein, and DNA content Accuracy: 98.5% |
[31][24] |
| 2013 | Rubina et al. (Krishna group) | 94 patient samples—45 negative cytology and 49 cervical cancer cytology | Centrifugation and washing with saline Pellets of exfoliated cells on calcium fluoride slides Red blood cell (RBC) lysis buffer treatment |
Horiba- Jobin-Yvon fibre-optic Raman microprobe system 785 nm laser ∼40 mW at the sample 40X/0.65 NA objective lens Spectral resolution ∼4 cm−1 6 s acquisition, 3 accumulations |
Principal Component Analysis Linear Discriminant Analysis (PCA-LDA) | Treatment of cell pellet with RBC lysis buffer to remove blood contamination Discrimination of negative and cancer cytology Spectral differences: protein Accuracy: 80% |
[32][25] |
| 2014 | Bonnier et al. (Lyng group) | 63 patient samples—50 negative cytology and 13 high-grade cytology | ThinPrep method Single exfoliated cells on ThinPrep glass slides Hydrogen peroxide pre-treatment |
Horiba- Jobin-Yvon XploRA Raman microscope 532 nm laser ∼8 mW at the sample 100X/0.9 NA objective lens Spectral resolution ∼3 cm−1 10 s acquisition, 3 accumulations |
PCA | Pre-treatment of ThinPrep slides with hydrogen peroxide to eliminate variability due to blood contamination Discrimination of negative and high-grade cytology Spectral differences: DNA, RNA |
[35][28] |
| 2016 | Ramos et al. (Lyng group) | 166 patient samples—88 negative cytology, 35 low-grade cytology, and 43 high-grade cytology | Sample preparation as for Bonnier et al. [28][29] | Raman set up as for Bonnier et al., 30 s acquisition, 2 accumulations | PCA-LDA | Discrimination of negative, low-grade, and high-grade cytology Spectral differences: lipids, nucleic acids, and proteins Sensitivity: 90.91–100% Specificity: 97.24–100% |
[36][30] |
| 2017 | Kearney et al. (Lyng group) | 80 patient samples—30 negative cytology, 50 high-grade cytology | Sample preparation as for Bonnier et al. [28][29] | Raman set up as for Bonnier et al., 30 s acquisition, 2 accumulations | PCA-Factorial Discriminant Analysis (FDA) | Raman spectral signatures of superficial, intermediate, and parabasal cells High variability in spectra from cytoplasm due to glycogen Discrimination of negative and high-grade cytology Spectral differences: lipids, nucleic acids and proteins Sensitivity: 92%, Specificity: 97% |
[37][31] |
| 2018 | Traynor et al. (Lyng group) | 60 patient samples—45 negative cytology and 15 high-grade cytology | Sample preparation as for Bonnier et al. [28][29] | Raman set up as for Bonnier et al., 30 s acquisition, 2 accumulations | PLSDA | Biochemical changes due to high-grade cytology more pronounced than hormone related changes Discrimination of negative and high-grade cytology Spectral differences: glycogen, nucleic acids, and proteins Sensitivity: 96–98%, Specificity: 97–98% |
[38][32] |
| 2018 | Duraipandian et al. (Lyng group) | 35 patient samples—18 negative cytology and 17 high-grade cytology | Sample preparation as for Bonnier et al. [28][29] | Raman set up as for Bonnier et al., 30 s acquisition, 2 accumulations | PCA-LDA and PLSDA | Discrimination of negative and high-grade cytology (morphologically normal superficial and intermediate cells) Spectral differences: glycogen, nucleic acids, and proteins Sensitivity: 75.6% (PCA-LDA), 96.1% (PLSDA) Specificity: 84.5% (PCA-LDA), 93.5% (PLSDA) |
[39][33] |
| 2018 | Traynor et al. (Lyng group) | 30 patient samples—15 negative cytology and 15 high-grade cytology | Sample preparation as for Bonnier et al. [28][29] | Raman set up as for Bonnier et al. 30 s acquisition, 2 accumulations |
PLSDA | Pre-treatment of ThinPrep vial with hydrogen peroxide to remove excessive blood contamination (blood scale index 2–3) Discrimination of negative and high-grade cytology (morphologically normal superficial and intermediate cells) Spectral differences: glycogen, nucleic acids, and proteins Sensitivity: 82–92%, Specificity: 87–93% |
[40][34] |
| 2018 | Hole et al. (Krishna group) | 66 patient samples—28 negative cytology and 38 cervical cancer cytology | Centrifugation and washing with saline Pellets of exfoliated cells on calcium fluoride slides Red blood cell (RBC) lysis buffer treatment |
Horiba-Jobin-Yvon fibre-optic Raman microprobe system 785 nm laser ∼40 mW at the sample 40X/0.65 NA objective lens Spectral resolution ∼4 cm−1 15 s acquisition time, 3 accumulations |
PCA-LDA | Discrimination of negative and cancer cytology Spectral differences: DNA, protein Accuracy: 84% |
[34][27] |
| 2019 | Aljouch et al. (El-Mashtoly/Gerwert group) | 30 patient samples—10 negative, 10 low-grade and 10 high-grade cytology | Single exfoliated cells prepared using a cytospin centrifuge onto quartz slides | WITec Raman microscope 532 nm laser 60X/1.0 NA objective lens, water immersion |
Deep convolutional neural networks (DCNN) | Raman imaging of single exfoliated cells Discrimination of negative, low-grade, and high-grade cytology Spectral differences: lipids, proteins, polysaccharides, and nucleic acids Accuracy: 94–100% |
[41][35] |
| 2020 | X. Zheng et al. (Wu group) |
63 patient samples 33-normal 30- HR-HPV |
5 µL of preserved cell samples on aluminum foil, dried at room temperature | LabRam HR evolution with 532 nm laser source was focused using 50X objective | PCA-LDA | The authors observed the diagnostic accuracy of 99.4% | [42][36] |
| 2020 | Sitarz et al. (Kaczor group) |
96 patient samples––negative, low-grade, high-grade, and cancer cytology and HPV- and HPV+ | Single exfoliated cells fixed with 2.5% glutaraldehyde, washed in PBS, and placed on calcium fluoride slides | WITec Raman microscope 532 nm laser ∼28 mW at the sample 63X/1.0 NA objective lens, water immersion Spectral resolution ∼3 cm−1 |
Cluster analysis (CA) | Increased glycogen metabolism with HPV infection—for cells with large nuclear diameter, glycogen decreased in HPV positive compared to HPV negative samples | [43][37] |
| 2020 | Karunakaran et al. (Maiti group) | 124 patient samples comprising 47 negative, 41 high-grade, and 36 cancer cytology | Single exfoliated cells, cell pellets and extracted DNA incubated with gold nanoparticles (AuNPs, 40–45 nm) on glass slide | WITec Raman microscope 633 nm laser 20X objective lens |
Support vector machines (SVM) | Discrimination of negative, high-grade, and cancer cytology Spectral differences—nucleic acids and amino acids Accuracy: 94.46% (single exfoliated cells), 71.6% (cell pellets) and 97.72% (extracted DNA) |
[44][38] |
| 2021 | Karunakaran et al. (Maiti group) | 9 patient samples comprising 3 negative, 3 high-grade, and 3 cancer cytology | Density gradient centrifugation Single exfoliated cells on glass slide Incubation with SERS nanotag for 45 min |
WITec Raman microscope 633 nm laser 10 mW power 20X objective lens Spectral resolution ∼1 cm−1 10 s acquisition, 3 accumulations |
n/a | SERS detection of cervical cancer biomarkers p16 and Ki67 in single exfoliated cells | [45][39] |
| 2021 | Sitarz et al. (Kaczor group) | 63 patient samples comprising negative, low-grade, high-grade, and cancer cytology and HPV- and HPV+ | Sample preparation as for Sitarz et al. [36][30] | Raman set up as for Sitarz et al. | K means cluster analysis (KMCA) | Dual switch of lipid metabolism—decreased lipid in low-grade cytology and increased lipid in high-grade and cancer cytology compared to negative cytology | [46][40] |
| 2021 | Traynor et al. (Lyng group) | 60 patient samples for training set—30 HPV DNA positive, mRNA negative and 30 HPV DNA positive, mRNA positive 14 blinded patient samples for test set |
Sample preparation as for Bonnier et al. [28][29] | Raman set up as for Bonnier et al. 30 s acquisition, 2 accumulations |
PLSDA | Discrimination of transient and transforming HPV infections (morphologically normal superficial and intermediate cells) Spectral differences: glycogen, nucleic acids and proteins Accuracy: 93% |
[47][41] |
| 2022 | Traynor et al. (Lyng group) | 662 patient samples for training set—326 negative cytology, 200 low-grade cytology and 136 high-grade cytology 69 blinded patient samples for test set |
Sample preparation as for Bonnier et al. [28][29] | Raman set up as for Bonnier et al. 30 s acquisition, 2 accumulations |
PLSDA | Discrimination of negative, CIN1, and CIN2+ samples (morphologically normal superficial and intermediate cells) Spectral differences: glycogen, nucleic acids, and proteins Accuracy: 91.3% |
[48][42] |