Tissue interrogation using mass spectrometry based diagnostic techniques

Over the last decades, mass spectrometry based diagnostic tests have become an important cornerstone in clinical decision making. This thesis evaluated the efficacy of existing reference techniques and developed new techniques that might improve the detection of drugs and the characterization and discrimination between normal and diseased tissue in human brain tumours, both in the laboratory and intra-operatively. The research presented in this thesis contributed to the development of molecular patterns-based classification to support personalised and precise intraoperative decision making. Thanks to the real-time information during electrosurgical dissection a more accurate tissue identification and significantly shorter surgery time becomes possible. Hence, the possibility of direct tissue and tumour identification would provide the surgeon with additional important information to be used for multimodal integration, allowing intraoperative decision making