A
system, method and
software arrangement according to exemplary embodiments of the present invention are provided which can use molecular profiles obtained from unaltered human tissue specimens for clinical purposes including
disease diagnoses and treatment evaluations. For example, spatial distributions of
chemical species including metabolites within the tissue may be obtained using radiological techniques such as magnetic
resonance spectroscopy imaging.
Disease-specific profiles may be obtained by comparing the distributions of
chemical species obtained in
ex vivo tissues with
pathological observations made on them using
statistical analysis. The
disease-specific profiles may then be correlated with
in vivo or
ex vivo molecular profiles to obtain
spatial maps that can provide a more sensitive and accurate detection of diseased tissue. Thus, such exemplary systems, methods and
software arrangements can include the ability to receive information relating to the distribution of at least three
chemical species in the tissue of interest, compare this information statistically to a predetermined profile and, based on the
statistical correlation between the information and the profile, determine certain characteristics of the tissue of interest such as, e.g., the presence or absence of diseased tissue.