Raman spectroscopy as a promising tool for noninvasive point-of-care glucose monitoring.

Self-monitoring of glucose is important for managing diabetes. Noninvasive glucose monitors are not yet available, but patients would benefit highly from such a device. We present results that may lead to a novel, point-of-care noninvasive system to measure blood glucose based on Raman spectroscopy. A hospitalized cohort of 111 subjects was measured using a custom-made Raman spectrometer system. Blood glucose reference samples were used to correlate Raman data to glucose levels, using advanced preprocessing and analysis algorithms. A correlation coefficient (R (2)) of .83 was found correlating independent Raman-based predictions on reference blood glucose for the full cohort. Stratification of the cohort in gender-specific groups raised correlation levels to .88 (females) and .94 (males). Glucose could be measured noninvasively with average errors as low as 0.9 mM. We conclude that this novel system shows promising results for the advance of noninvasive, point-of-care glucose monitoring.