Princeton Engineers Develop a Non-invasive Blood Glucose Test that Uses Imaging Technology
If validated in clinical trials, this novel technology has the potential to shift some glucose testing from the clinical laboratory by offering diabetics a convenient, painless blood sugar test
Glucose testing is both a headache and an opportunity for clinical laboratories here in the United States and across the globe. It is a headache because many point-of-care and patient self-test glucose devices in wide use today lack the reliability of glucose testing performed in medical laboratories that use sophisticated diagnostic instruments.
It is an opportunity because, here in the United States and across the globe, there are tens of millions of type 2 diabetics and hundreds of millions of pre-diabetics. Health systems have an unmet demand for glucose testing that is non-invasive, accurate, can be done in patient care settings, and is cheap.
Recently, researchers at Princeton University announced development of noninvasive, in vivo glucose sensor technology that uses a broad-spectrum band of infrared (IR) light to accurately measure blood sugar.
The clinical market for such a device is huge. Just in the United States, there are more than 30 million diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, and more than 70 million pre-diabetics. Researchers have been working for some time to develop a patient-friendly glucose-monitoring technology that does not require a needle stick or venipuncture. (more…)
