Noninvasive monitoring of glucose concentration with optical coherence tomography

We have proposed a tested in tissue phantoms and in vivo a novel sensor bas ed on optical coherence tomography (OCT) for noninvasive and continuous mon itoring of blood glucose concentration. OCT images were obtained from pig a nd rabbit skin before and after glucose administration. Slopes of OCT signa ls decreased substantially (similar to 40% in tissues in vivo) and linearly with the increase of blood glucose concentration from 4 to 30 mM, typical for normal and diabetic subjects. Phantom studies demonstrated 1% accuracy of scattering-coefficient measurement. Our theoretical and experimental stu dies suggest that glucose concentration can potentially be measured noninva sively with high sensitivity and accuracy with OCT systems. (C) 2001 Optica l Society of America.