The invention relates to a method and a device for measuring glucose in a sample, in particular in a sample of living body tissue.
Various non-invasive methods for measuring glucose in body tissue have been known. In particular, U.S. Pat. No. 5,792,668 by Fuller et al. describes a device where a square wave signal or a plurality of sine waves with differing frequencies are fed to a first electrode applied to the tissue. A second electrode is used for measuring a signal transmitted through the tissue. The phase and/or amplitude of the transmitted signal are used for determining the glucose level.
Hence, it is a general object of the invention to provide a method and a device for the non-invasive measurement of glucose.
This object is met by the independent claims. Accordingly, an end of a probe is applied to the sample. A pulse generator is used to generate single pulses to be fed into the probe. The pulses are reflected at the end of the probe, which acts as a fringing capacitor with field lines extending into the specimen, and the reflected pulses are measured by a reflection measuring device. An analyzer is used for determining at least one parameter of the reflected pulses and for determining the glucose level from this parameter or these parameters, e.g. by using calibration data stored in a memory.
In this context, the term “pulse” is understood to encompass not only isolated pulses having a rising and a trailing edge, but also pulses consisting of a rising or a trailing edge only, i.e. isolated transitions of the voltage level applied to the probe.
The invention will be better understood and objects other than those set forth above will become apparent when consideration is given to the following detailed description thereof. Such description makes reference to the annexed drawings, wherein:
The preferred embodiment of the present invention is based on Time Domain Spectroscopy, where a pulse if fed to a probe, and end of which is applied to a sample, and where the time resolved characteristics of the reflected pulse are analyzed. For an overview and description of the theory of this method, see:
The disclosure of Ref. 2 is being incorporated herein by reference.
An embodiment of a device for measuring the glucose concentration in a sample 1, in particular in the living human body, is shown in
Pulses reflected from end 6 arrive back at node 4 and are fed to a measuring device 7. In the present embodiment, measuring device 7 records the reflected pulses in time resolved manner.
The data from measuring device 7 are digitized and fed to an analyzer 8, such as a computer system, where they are processed. Using calibration data stored in a calibration table 9, analyzer 8 converts the data to a glucose level, which is e.g. displayed on a display 10.
A first embodiment of a probe 5 of Chebishev-type symmetry as described in Ref. 2 is shown in
A second embodiment of a probe 5 is shown in
As described in Ref. 1, an integration of the voltage traces of
Experiments show that the traces of
Hence, in a preferred embodiment, measuring device 7 is designed for carrying out at least one, preferably more than one, measurement in the range of 10 to 1000 ns after the generation of the pulse.
The duration of a pulse is preferably at least 10 ns since the relevant polarization processes were found to set in at this time scale.
When ignoring the measured point at t=26 min (considered to be an outlier due to a sudden movement of the subject while drinking the glucose solution), the points show a clear increase of the charge after approximately 40 min when the glucose level in the subject's tissue starts to increase.
By running a calibration measurement where Q(t=19 ns) as shown in
For this purpose, the conventionally obtained glucose level cgl and the charge Q measured in the calibration measurement can e.g. be fitted to a function f using one or more parameters p1, p2, . . . , i.e. cgl=f(Q, p1, p2 . . . ). The parameters p1, p2 . . . can be stored in calibration table 9, such that, during a later measurement, f(Q, p1, p2 . . . ) can be calculated for any value Q. The function f(Q) can e.g. be a straight line (i.e. f(Q, p1, p2)=p1 +Q·p2) or any other function that is found empirically or theoretically.
In the examples shown so far, measuring device 7 carries out a time resolved measurement of the reflected pulses. This data is digitized and integrated in analyzer 8 as described in Ref. 2 for calculating the charge Q(t) at t=19 ns. In another embodiment, the integration could also be carried out by analog circuitry before converting the charge Q(t=19 ns) to a digital value.
Also, the integration could be started at a time later than t=0 because the period up to t=1 ns shows only a very weak dependence on the glucose level (see
The parameter measured by measuring device 7 is the voltage V(t) applied to probe 5, which includes a contribution of the reflected pulse. It is the sum of the input voltage V0(t) and the reflected voltage R(t). Instead of integrating the voltage V(t) as shown in Ref. 2, it is also possible to use V(t=19 ns) directly or to use another characteristic value derived from V(t), for example:
While there are shown and described presently preferred embodiments of the invention, it is to be distinctly understood that the invention is not limited thereto but may be otherwise variously embodied and practiced within the scope of the following claims.
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | PCT/IB02/03604 | Sep 2002 | US |
Child | 11070853 | Mar 2005 | US |