Diabetics glucose-testing devices

These principles have been incorporated into home testing devices for diabetics, using a different ferrocene derivative. A drop of patient blood is placed onto a test strip containing (a) ferrocene and GO adsorbed onto a conductor, and (b) a counterelectrode conductor. The test strip is inserted into a portable, handheld potentiostat, and the current measured by the device is directly related to the blood glucose concentration. A similar device for the quantitation lactate is available, and another, for cholesterol quantitation, is to be introduced in the near future. 

Ceriotti F, Kaczmarek E, Guerra E, Mastrantonio F, Lucarelli F, Valgimigli F, Mosca A (2015) Comparative performance assessment of point-of-care testing devices for measuring glucose and ketones at the patient bedside. J Diabetes Sci Technol 9(2) 268-277... 

The application of an artificial endocrine pancreas (AEP=Biostator) with feedback control could be useful in the clinical management of unstable diabetics (Ohno et al., 1983). Former early closed-loop devices were large bedside machines (Pfeiffer et al., 1974) with only limited application for long-term use. More recent research has developed small glucose sensors which, however, have had only preliminarily testing for clinical application. External insulin pumps must be further miniaturized and technical failure... 

The monitoring of blood lactate levels in high-performance athletics has led to the introduction of handheld devices, similar to the devices used for hlood glucose monitoring hy diabetics [236]. The Analox P-LM-5 (Analox Instruments, England) uses a 5-pL hlood sample and produces a value within 20 s of application of the sample to the lactate oxidase/peroxide-hased test strip. The Lactate Pro (Arkray Inc., Japan) is another lactate oxidase-hased, amperometric, handheld device for lactate monitoring, and is marketed for athletes... 

Electrochemistry is a cheap analytical method that can be used with cloudy test samples and works well with miniaturization. It was thus adopted early as an ideal analytical method when novel reliable and sensitive non-isotopic immunoassays were developed [79]. In addition, ferrocene has long been known as an excellent redox mediator, used in many applications some of which are discussed in this book (cf. Chapters 6 and 9). One example is in commercial biosensor devices, such as the hand-held Medisense Precision QID glucose meter for use by diabetics to determine their sugar levels in whole blood [80]. It is therefore unsurprising to find that some of the oldest and best developed MIAs employ electrochemical methods to quantify the tracer. 

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