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Diagnostic performance of attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy for detecting osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis from blood serum

Mannerkorpi, Minna ; Gupta, Shuvashis Das LU orcid ; Rieppo, Lassi and Saarakkala, Simo LU (2025) In Spectrochimica Acta - Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy 338.
Abstract

Osteoarthritis (OA) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are the two most common rheumatic diseases worldwide, causing pain and disability. Both conditions are highly heterogeneous, and their onset occurs insidiously with non-specific symptoms, so they are not always distinguishable from other arthritis during the initial stages. This makes early diagnosis difficult and resource-demanding in clinical environments. Here, we estimated its diagnostic performance in classifying ATR-FTIR spectra obtained from serum samples from OA patients, RA patients, and healthy controls. Altogether, 334 serum samples were obtained from 100 OA patients, 134 RA patients, and 100 healthy controls. The infrared spectral acquisition was performed on air-dried 1 µl... (More)

Osteoarthritis (OA) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are the two most common rheumatic diseases worldwide, causing pain and disability. Both conditions are highly heterogeneous, and their onset occurs insidiously with non-specific symptoms, so they are not always distinguishable from other arthritis during the initial stages. This makes early diagnosis difficult and resource-demanding in clinical environments. Here, we estimated its diagnostic performance in classifying ATR-FTIR spectra obtained from serum samples from OA patients, RA patients, and healthy controls. Altogether, 334 serum samples were obtained from 100 OA patients, 134 RA patients, and 100 healthy controls. The infrared spectral acquisition was performed on air-dried 1 µl of serum with a diamond-ATR-FTIR spectrometer. Machine learning models combining Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) were trained to binary classify preprocessed ATR-FTIR spectra as follows: controls vs. OA, controls vs. RA, and OA vs. RA. For a separated test dataset and the validation dataset, the overall model performance was better in classifying OA and RA patients, followed by the RA and controls, and lastly, between OA and controls, with corresponding AUC-ROC values: 0.72 (0.05; standard deviation for 100 iterations), 0.67 (0.04; standard deviation for 100 iterations), and 0.61 (0.06; standard deviation for 100 iterations) (test dataset) and 0.87 (0.02; standard deviation for 100 iterations), 0.87 (0.02; standard deviation for 100 iterations), 0.70 (0.07; standard deviation for 100 iterations) (validation dataset). In conclusion, this study reports robust binary classifier models to differentiate the two most common arthritic diseases from blood serum, showing the potential of ATR-FTIR as an effective aid in arthritic disease classification.

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author
; ; and
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
ATR-FTIR, Osteoarthritis, PLS-DA, Rheumatoid arthritis, Serum, SVM
in
Spectrochimica Acta - Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy
volume
338
article number
126206
publisher
Elsevier
external identifiers
  • scopus:105002340674
  • pmid:40220689
ISSN
1386-1425
DOI
10.1016/j.saa.2025.126206
language
English
LU publication?
no
additional info
Publisher Copyright: © 2025 The Author(s)
id
da9b9b78-569f-4319-8fe6-dd7a2e722c9a
date added to LUP
2026-06-12 10:59:05
date last changed
2026-07-11 18:37:19
@article{da9b9b78-569f-4319-8fe6-dd7a2e722c9a,
  abstract     = {{<p>Osteoarthritis (OA) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are the two most common rheumatic diseases worldwide, causing pain and disability. Both conditions are highly heterogeneous, and their onset occurs insidiously with non-specific symptoms, so they are not always distinguishable from other arthritis during the initial stages. This makes early diagnosis difficult and resource-demanding in clinical environments. Here, we estimated its diagnostic performance in classifying ATR-FTIR spectra obtained from serum samples from OA patients, RA patients, and healthy controls. Altogether, 334 serum samples were obtained from 100 OA patients, 134 RA patients, and 100 healthy controls. The infrared spectral acquisition was performed on air-dried 1 µl of serum with a diamond-ATR-FTIR spectrometer. Machine learning models combining Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) were trained to binary classify preprocessed ATR-FTIR spectra as follows: controls vs. OA, controls vs. RA, and OA vs. RA. For a separated test dataset and the validation dataset, the overall model performance was better in classifying OA and RA patients, followed by the RA and controls, and lastly, between OA and controls, with corresponding AUC-ROC values: 0.72 (0.05; standard deviation for 100 iterations), 0.67 (0.04; standard deviation for 100 iterations), and 0.61 (0.06; standard deviation for 100 iterations) (test dataset) and 0.87 (0.02; standard deviation for 100 iterations), 0.87 (0.02; standard deviation for 100 iterations), 0.70 (0.07; standard deviation for 100 iterations) (validation dataset). In conclusion, this study reports robust binary classifier models to differentiate the two most common arthritic diseases from blood serum, showing the potential of ATR-FTIR as an effective aid in arthritic disease classification.</p>}},
  author       = {{Mannerkorpi, Minna and Gupta, Shuvashis Das and Rieppo, Lassi and Saarakkala, Simo}},
  issn         = {{1386-1425}},
  keywords     = {{ATR-FTIR; Osteoarthritis; PLS-DA; Rheumatoid arthritis; Serum; SVM}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{10}},
  publisher    = {{Elsevier}},
  series       = {{Spectrochimica Acta - Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy}},
  title        = {{Diagnostic performance of attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy for detecting osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis from blood serum}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.saa.2025.126206}},
  doi          = {{10.1016/j.saa.2025.126206}},
  volume       = {{338}},
  year         = {{2025}},
}