Non-invasive glucose sensor could eliminate painful procedures

People living with diabetes monitor and manage their condition by checking glucose levels in their blood via a finger pin prick to draw blood or by wearing adhesive microneedles. In addition to being painful, these methods can cause itching, inflammation and infection.

Now, researchers at TMOS, the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems, believe they have taken a significant step towards eliminating this discomfort.

Their RMIT University team has discovered new aspects of glucose’s infrared signature and used this to develop a miniaturised optical sensor measuring 5mm in diameter that could one day be used to provide continuous non-invasive glucose monitoring in diabetes management.

Non-invasive glucose sensing has been a target for almost 30 years due to its implications for pain free monitoring. Optical glucose sensing techniques have been reported; but they require complex optical instrumentation usually found in laboratories, making them unsuitable for regular patient use.

According to the team, the primary challenge in developing affordable, wearable optical glucose testing has been miniaturisation and filtering out the glucose signals from water absorption peaks in the near infrared (NIR) spectrum. Until now, it has been almost impossible to accurately differentiate between water and glucose in the blood.