**8. Conclusions and outlook**

In the last years, there was a significant improvement in instrumentation of Raman spectroscopy, leading to an enhancement of sensitivity and accuracy of this approach. In this way, Raman has been broadly used in the context of medical investigation, mainly in the oncologic field. Coupled to adequate chemometric analysis tools, Raman spectroscopy, mainly SERS, was already applied to successfully diagnose several types of cancer, infections and preliminary results are also promising in the context of Alzheimer's disease. It is expected that in the next years, Raman spectroscopy can be routinely used in hospitals to *in vivo* diagnose and surveillance of several diseases, producing fast and accurate results, decreasing waiting times and, in this way, improving efficacy of treatments.
