Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and FTIR microscopic imaging, which are one of the vibration spectroscopy applications, have recently been tested in many disease analysis studies. There are promising studies on the use of blood and urine markers as a potential diagnostic tool in many different forms of kidney diseases. Infrared analyzes of kidney stone components and cystine stones are currently used clinically. In parallel with the technological developments in spectrometer components and the developments in software and mathematical techniques, this spectroscopic method has been applied as a differential diagnosis method for many diseases such as gastrointestinal, cervical and prostate cancers.

Our studies in this area started with simulating urine and showing it in the FTIR spectrum*, and the variation between the urine spectra of healthy pre-pubertal and adult individuals was demonstrated using statistical methods. Thanks to collaborations with Atılım University Biophysics Research Laboratory, Ankara Training and Research Hospital Pediatric Nephrology, Trakya University Nephrology and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry units, the potential of using FTIR method in the urinary diagnosis and/or follow-up of cases such as autism, hematuria, proteinuria, and lipiduria is being investigated.

* N. Sarigul, F. Korkmaz, İ. Kurultak. “A New Artificial Urine Protocol to Better Imitate Human Urine” Nature Scientific Reports, 9, 20159, 2019. doi:10.1038/s41598-019-56693-4