Noninvasive Wearable Electrochemical Glucose Sensors

There has been an increase in interest in recent years in developing noninvasive wearable glucose sensors for continuous glucose monitoring. Diabetes ranks among one of the leading causes of death globally, and is one of the most widely spread modern lifestyle diseases.1 Current blood glucose monitors are limited to periodic testing and are more invasive compared to new wearable sensors.1,2 These noninvasive sensors eliminate the need for patients to draw blood and instead detect glucose using saliva, sweat, tears, and other bodily fluids.2 Recent studies have found the ability to implement the use of iontophoresis (IP) and reverse iontophoresis (R-IP) to develop a specific kind of glucose sensor.3,4,5 A recent study investigating the use of a tattoo-based monitor which combines R-IP extraction of interstitial glucose along with an enzyme-based amperometric biosensor has shown promise for a commercial use as an epidermal noninvasive glucose sensor.3 Additionally, a hydrogel-based electrochemical (H-EC) sensor has been shown to detect interstitial fluid extracted glucose comparable to commercial blood glucose monitors.4 Lastly, a perspiration-based biosensor, which uses IP to deliver stimulating agonists to the sweat glands with an electrical current aid, could detect increased glucose levels in sweat after the intake of glucose following fasting.5 These noninvasive wearable glucose sensors have shown potential to eliminate the need for invasive testing caused by conventional blood glucose monitors, as well as implement a form of continuous glucose monitoring.

References:

1.            Kim, J.; Campbell, A. S.; Wang, J., Wearable non-invasive epidermal glucose sensors: A review. Talanta 2017.

2.            Bandodkar, A. J.; Wang, J., Non-invasive wearable electrochemical sensors: a review. Trends in Biotechnology 2014, 32 (7), 363-371.

3.            Bandodkar, A. J.; Jia, W.; Yardımcı, C.; Wang, X.; Ramirez, J.; Wang, J., Tattoo-Based Noninvasive Glucose Monitoring: A Proof-of-Concept Study. Analytical Chemistry 2015, 87 (1), 394-398.

4.            Park, H.; Lee, J.-Y.; Kim, D.-C.; Koh, Y.; Cha, J. In Hydrogel-based electrochemical sensor for non-invasive and continuous glucose monitoring, International Conference on Nano-Bio Sensing, Imaging, and Spectroscopy 2017, SPIE: 2017; p 9.

5.            Emaminejad, S.; Gao, W.; Wu, E.; Davies, Z. A.; Yin Yin Nyein, H.; Challa, S.; Ryan, S. P.; Fahad, H. M.; Chen, K.; Shahpar, Z.; Talebi, S.; Milla, C.; Javey, A.; Davis, R. W., Autonomous sweat extraction and analysis applied to cystic fibrosis and glucose monitoring using a fully integrated wearable platform. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2017, 114 (18), 4625-4630.