Blood sugar measured by laser may do away with pin pricks

Researchers are working on a way to use laser technology to measure blood glucose non-invasively. While there is still a way to go before they have a laser device that is portable and suitable for home use, they believe one day it will replace the need for diabetics to draw blood to test their glucose levels, Medical News Today reports.

In the journal Biomedical Optics Express, the team of electrical engineers, from Princeton University, NJ, describes how they used their prototype device to measure blood sugar by directing the laser at a person's palm.

Senior author Claire Gmachl, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Electrical Engineering at Princeton, says:

"With this work we hope to improve the lives of many diabetes sufferers who depend on frequent blood glucose monitoring."

Laser beam penetrates skin and is absorbed by glucose

The device works by sending a laser beam through skin cells - without causing damage - to be absorbed by sugar molecules.

The amount of absorption of the laser beam is thus an indicator of the amount of glucose in the blood.

Lead author Sabbir Liakat, a graduate student in electrical engineering, says even their early version of the laser system met this requirement, and the latest version is 84% accurate.

The challenge now is to improve the technology - and not least to bring down the scale.

The device uses a 'quantum cascade laser' to produce mid-infrared light

The quantum cascade laser allows the team to select the frequency they need in the mid-infrared region, and also because of recent improvements in the technology, it provides the increased power and stability needed to penetrate the skin.

Small study shows average readings meet required clinical accuracy

In their study paper they describe how they measured the blood sugar of three healthy volunteers before and after they each ate 20 jellybeans. The researchers also measured the resulting rise in blood sugar with the conventional finger-prick test.

The team repeated the experiment and took measurements several times over several weeks. The results showed that while the laser device's average readings had errors larger than standard blood sugar monitors, they were within the range required for clinical accuracy.

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