Assessing and Advancing Technology for the Noninvasive Measurement of Clinical Glucose

Noninvasive glucose sensing is an active area of research and development with many different approaches being explored since the 1980s. The promise of this approach is to provide a measure of the blood glucose concentration in a rapid, painless, and cost-effective manner so that people with diabetes can better maintain tight glycemic control, thereby reducing the complications of diabetes. This mini-review covers the major approaches to noninvasive glucose sensing and focuses on issues that must be resolved before a clinically useful device can be developed. A strong emphasis is placed on measurement selectivity, and methods to examine and characterize the selectivity of such a complex analytical problem are discussed.