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Local team comes up with screening device using light
 DIABETICS can soon rest easy as there may no longer be a need to draw blood to test their blood sugar level.
Home-grown company Glucostat System and the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) have developed a prototype screening device that uses light to take a blood reading instead.
“It was an accidental discovery when we found light waveforms attached themselves differently to blood containing varying concentrations of HbA1c, the sugar molecule that chemically attaches to the haemoglobin in the blood,” said Dr Ting Choon Meng, a general practitioner who is part of the research team and owns medical devices company HealthStats International.
Using a laser diode customised in Germany, the team came up with a device in which a patient could simply place a finger over a probe for between 10 and 20 seconds.
In May, trials were carried out with NTU and at Dr Ting’s clinic on 30 people – 19 of whom were non-diabetics. The rest were patients with the chronic condition and whose blood sugar levels were badly controlled.
“We also took blood at the same time to serve as a comparison and the results showed very good correlation for both the high and low levels,” Dr Ting told The Straits Times.
Currently, blood is drawn from a vein and collected into avial to measure the blood sugar control over several months.
Diabetes is a long-term illness characterised by high sugar levels in the blood. Sufferers either produce too little insulin to process the sugar or are unable to respond well to the insulin produced.
According to 2007 figures, the prevalence of diabetes mellitus among Singapore adults up to the age of 69 was 4.6 per cent.
The HbA1c test gives a good estimate of how well the diabetes is managed over the last two to three months. A non-diabetic’s HbA1c glucose reading is 5 per cent to 6 per cent and the goal in diabetes management is to reach 7 per cent or less.
An HbA1c glucose reading of 8 per cent and above would mean the diabetes is badly controlled.
Doctors believe the test is currently one of the best ways to diagnose diabetes because it gives a more accurate reading of blood sugar levels. Also, an average HbA1c level taken over time has less variation than a one-off test.
Some doctors managing diabetics said the non-invasive screening technology looks set to revolutionise how diabetes could be managed at home and in clinics.
But Dr Warren Lee, who specialises in diabetes in children, said that while it is good to obtain the average HbA1c level without having to draw blood, what is
needed when it comes to his patients is a minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour blood-glucose monitor.
“They need to be pricked three to four times a day, to know if the level is too high or too low during meals or certain activities. This new machine, however, is still not able to give such live feeds,” he said.
Glucostat filed for local and international patents last month for the monitoring of HbA1c before embarking on a multi-centre clinical trial.
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