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Transdermal monitoring of glucose and other analytes using ultrasound

Nature Medicine volume 6, pages 347–350 (2000)Cite this article

Considerable effort has been directed towards developing painless and convenient methods to measure blood analytes, particularly glucose1, including implantable sensors2,3,4, minimally invasive skin microporation approaches involving laser or miniaturized lancets5 and noninvasive technologies such as near-infrared spectroscopy5, transdermal permeation enhancers6 or reverse iontophoresis7,8. However, none are used in routine clinical practice5. One of the fundamental problems in noninvasive transdermal diagnostics is obtaining sufficient quantities of analyte for detection. Ultrasound, particularly at low frequencies, enhances transdermal delivery of drugs (sonophoresis)9,10,11. Here, we sought to determine whether such ultrasound facilitates the outward transport of analytes present in the interstitial fluid, thereby allowing noninvasive extraction of clinically useful analytes12.

Transdermal analyte extraction in vitro and in vivo

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Figure 1: Ultrasound-enhanced skin permeability.
Figure 2: Glucose extraction and correlation in rats.
Figure 3: Glucose extraction and correlation in humans.
Figure 4: Current protocols and product concept vision.

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Acknowledgements

We thank R. Rubin and A. Moses for advice; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Clinical Research Center teams and A. Patel for technical assistance; and Nicholas Warner and Tom Devlin for illustrations. This work was supported by American Diabetes Association and Juvenile Diabetic Foundation grants 197033, and the United States–Israel Binational Science Foundation grant 93-00244, and Center for Disease Control.

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Author notes

  1. Robert A. Gabbay

    Present address: R.A.G. present address: Section of Endocrinology and Diabetes, Penn State Geisinger Health System, Hershey, Pennsylvania 17033, USA,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, 84105, Israel

    Joseph Kost

  2. Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, 02139 , Massachusetts, USA

    Joseph Kost & Robert Langer

  3. Department of Chemical Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, 93106, California, USA

    Samir Mitragotri

  4. Endocrine Division, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, 02215, Massachusetts, USA

    Robert A. Gabbay

  5. Department of Chemical Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, 77843, Texas, USA

    Michael Pishko

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Correspondence to Joseph Kost or Robert Langer.

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Kost, J., Mitragotri, S., Gabbay, R. et al. Transdermal monitoring of glucose and other analytes using ultrasound . Nat Med 6, 347–350 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/73213

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