Electrochemical Sweat Sensor Accurately Diagnoses Cystic Fibrosis, Detects Blood Glucose as Well

Image credit: Sam Emaminejad

Human sweat has a lot of biochemical information within it that can be indicative of certain diseases and conditions occurring below the skin. Cystic fibrosis, famously, is diagnosed by collecting a person’s sweat and measuring the amount of chloride dissolved in it. Current technologies require a sample of sweat to be collected, but it has to be large enough for analysis. This is a challenge with pediatric patients or older folks that don’t move a lot. Pilocarpine placed on the skin and electrical stimulation are widely used to stimulate the excretion of sweat, it requires the person tested to remain still and oftentimes these methods are not sufficient. Scientists at Stanford University and University of California, Berkeley have now developed a wearable sensor that stays on the skin, stimulates it and measuring the chloride concentration while the person can move around freely. There are strong indications that the same technology may be used to measure blood glucose and other important biomarkers.

The device electrically stimulates the skin to produce sweat and to also help a stimulating agonists (we’re guessing pilocarpine) to penetrate the skin. It relies on an “electrochemically enhanced iontophoresis interface” that connects to the integrated circuit that in turn sends the readings to an external computer. In the future the same technology can be integrated with wireless connectivity to allow for real-time monitoring of the device’s function using a tablet or smartphone.

The team tested the technology on a variety of patients, including those with cystic fibrosis, demonstrating its apparent effectiveness of accurately diagnosing the disease. Moreover, they were able to use the same device to detect rising glucose levels after consumption of sweet foods. Perhaps it will prove accurate enough to provide absolute measurements of glucose, a “holy grail” of modern medicine.

Study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: Autonomous sweat extraction and analysis applied to cystic fibrosis and glucose monitoring using a fully integrated wearable platform…

Via: Stanford…