The research progress and the application of FTIR spectroscopy on diagnosing cancer are reviewed. The cancer is one of the tallest diseases of the rate of human beings. At present, its diagnosis primarily depends on the pathology one. The process of pathology diagnosis is bother and often suffers the influence of the artificial factors. Along with the rapid development of FTIR spectroscopy and its correlative technique, the FTIR spectroscopy has been applied not only to studying the structure of big biologic molecules like protein or nucleic acid, but also to studying more and more complicated system like cells and tissues. The research expresses that FTIR spectroscopy can open out the characteristics of tissues of cancer from the molecular level, and it is very possible that FTIR will be a quantitative instrument of diagnosing cancer.