Noninvasive and prospective diagnosis of coronary heart disease with urine using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy

A prospective diagnosis method for coronary heart disease (CHD) using human urine based on surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is proposed, and could provide valuable information for judging whether to perform percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in clinics. Here, urine samples from 87 patients with CHD, including patients with PCI before operation (degree of cardiovascular congestion above 70%) and without PCI (degree of cardiovascular congestion under 70%), and 20 healthy humans were measured using SERS. Principal component analysis (PCA) combined with linear discriminant analysis (LDA) was employed to analyze the SERS spectra, revealing that the classification sensitivity and specificity were 90% and 78.9%, respectively, and the absolute value for loading of PC1 at 1509 cm−1 was the largest. Since platelet-derived growth factor-BB (PDGF-BB) is closely related to CHD, PDGF-BB aqueous solutions with various concentrations (1, 0.5, 0.1, 0.05 and 0.01 ppm) and a mixture of healthy human urine and PDGF-BB aqueous solutions were then investigated in this work, and it was found that the Raman peak at 1509 cm−1 may be attributed to PDGF-BB. Moreover, the measured SERS spectra of all the urine samples from the 87 patients with CHD were compared with the clinical data provided by a hospital, and it was revealed that the appearance of a peak at 1509 cm−1 in the SERS spectra was in good agreement with the results of coronary angiography tests when cardiovascular congestion was above 70%. This indicated that the classification sensitivity and specificity were 87.9% and 87.0%, respectively, through identification of the Raman peak at 1509 cm−1.