Novel Device to Make Blood Testing Painless for Diabetics

Novel microneedle patch reliably monitors blood-sugar levels and offers people with diabetes a painless alternative to pricking their fingers many times per day to take a blood test.

Newly designed microneedle patch helps people with diabetes to enable them to monitor their glucose levels throughout the day in a 'pain-free' manner.

Continuous monitoring is a way to safely and reliably lower blood glucose - giving the user a full picture of their glucose levels throughout the day and helping them avoid severe hypoglycemia.

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‘Novel microneedle patch which is designed to monitor blood glucose levels is 50 times smaller than the needles used in today’s continuous glucose monitoring systems. ’
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But the currently used continuous glucose monitoring systems (known as CGMS) are uncomfortable since they require a minimum 7mm needle inserted into the skin. Owing to their size, they take measurements in the fat tissue - not an ideal location.

However, the new device, developed by researchers at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, is 50 times smaller.

When applied to a human participant's forearm, the combination of the patch and an extremely miniaturized three-electrode enzymatic sensor was found capable of correctly and dynamically tracking blood glucose levels over time, with a delay of about 10 minutes.

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"Our solution is painless to the user. We measure directly in the skin, and there are no nerve receptors that detect pain - just a fine mesh of very tiny blood vessels," Federico Ribe, a doctoral student at the institute, said.

Unlike commercially available CGMS which measure the subcutaneous fat tissue, the new device measures within the skin less than 1mm deep, Ribet said.

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This would offer an alternative to pricking one's fingers several times a day to take a blood test, and the frequency of finger prick tests could be reduced with a glucose monitoring system, he noted.

The team has successfully tested the prototype of a microneedle patch on a human participant, and the completion of a system for clinical tests is now underway.