An investigation of the effect of in-vivo interferences on Raman glucose measurements

摘要

Raman spectroscopy is a promising technology for noninvasive blood glucose monitoring because of its good selectivity for the glucose molecule. The low sensitivity of the Raman signal however, makes it difficult to quantify the concentration of glucose directly from the Raman spectra. To solve this, statistical methods such as PCA (principle component analysis) and PLS (partial least square) are traditionally used. These statistical methods general work very well and give highly accurate results, provided there is no interference. In the in-vivo case however, there are many interferences such as the inhomogeneity of tissue, physiological changes, and denaturation of the tissue by the light source. This study investigates the affect of in-vivo interferences on Raman glucose measurements.rnIn this study, a high throughput dispersive Raman system was constructed with an 830nm multimode laser, a multiple conductor optical fiber bundle, and a back-illuminated CCD spectrometer. A simply phantom was devised, which was comprised of a plastic cuvette fitted with a human fingernail window and glucose doped human serum used as the sample. To test the inhomogeneity of tissue samples, different sites of the phantom were exposed to the laser. In the case of denaturation, tests were conducted under two laser power densities: low (3.7mW/mm ) and high density (110mW/mm2). To simulate the physiological change, gelatin phantoms of varied concentration were investigated. The results of the study indicate that the dominant interferers for Raman in-vivo glucose measurements are the inhomogeneity of the tissue and the denaturation by the laser power density. The next phase for this study will be the design of a high SNR Raman system which affords a low power density laser sample illumination as well as larger volumetric illumination to mitigate the effects of tissue inhomogeneity.