Pocket-type instrument for non-invasive measurement of blood glucose concentration

Claims

I claim:

1. A method for determining non-invasively the concentration of glucose in a blood-carrying body part of a patient comprising the steps of:

(a) splitting a laser beam into two polarized components and phase modulating one of the components with a modulation frequency above a range of mechanical vibrations and a phase, thereby providing a modulated component and an unmodulated component;

(b) combining the modulated and unmodulated components and forming therefrom a reference optical beam and a measurement optical beam, each of which is a polarized-modulated laser beam;

(c) passing the reference optical beam through a polarizer, sensing the polarized reference optical beam with a photodetector, and producing an electrical reference signal corresponding to the phase of the polarized-modulated optical beam;

(d) passing the measurement optical beam through a blood carrying body part having glucose to be measured and a thickness to provide a passed measurement optical beam having a phase and

(i) splitting the passed measurement optical beam into a polarized component and a depolarized component;

(ii) converting the depolarized component into a depolarized component electric signal;

(iii) converting the polarized component into a polarized component electric signal;

(iv) subtracting the depolarized component electric signal from the polarized component electric signal to provide a first subtracted signal;

(v) low-pass filtering the depolarized component electric signal to provide a low-pass filtered signal; and

(vi) dividing the first subtracted signal by the lowpass filtered signal, thereby providing an electrical measurement signal corresponding to the phase of the passed measurement optical beam;

(e) determining a phase difference between the electrical reference and measurement signals; and

(f) determining the concentration of the glucose in the blood carrying body part illuminated by the measurement optical beam based on the determined phase difference.

2. The method of claim 1 in which step (a) further comprises:

providing an optical phase modulator by joining together two lengths of polarization preserving fiber-optic conductors so that each fiber-optic length has an input end and an output end, providing an input optical coupler for coupling light received at each fiber-optic input end into both fiber-optic conductors, and providing an optical coupler output for mixing the light propagating in each fiber-optic and coupling said mixture to each fiber-optic output end;

passing the laser beam through a polarizing element and into one of the fiber-optic conductors so that a polarized optical beam component propagates in each fiber-optic conductor with a different direction of polarization; and

imparting the phase modulation to one of the two propagating polarized beam components to produce said modulated component and wherein the other propagating polarized beam component is the unmodulated component; and

in which step (b) further comprises:

combining coherently the modulated and unmodulated laser beam components at the output coupler and providing each fiber-optic conductor output with a complementary coherent mixture of the modulated and unmodulated beam components with an orthoganol direction of polarization; and

passing the outputs of the first and second fiber-optic conductors through respective quarter-wave plate windows, thereby providing the polarized-modulated reference and measurement optical beams.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the step of imparting a phase modulation further comprises attaching a piezoelectric body to one fiber-optic conductor between the input and output optical couplers, and activating the piezoelectric body to vibrate at the modulation frequency to deform the optical fiber to impart a phase modulation to the laser beam component propagating therein.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the step of attaching includes attaching a thin-walled piezoceramic ring around which the one fiber-optic conductor is wound.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the laser beam is a near infrared wavelength selected in the range of from 750 to 1000 mm, and the modulation frequency is selected in the range of from 650 Hz to 15,000 Hz.

6. The method of claim 3 in which step (d) further comprises providing a balanced receiver and performing steps d(i)-d(iii) using said balanced receiver.

7. The method of claim 6 in which step (e) further comprises processing the electrical reference and measurement signals using a phase sensitive homodyne receiver for producing therefrom a phase difference signal.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein step (e) further comprises feeding back a portion of the electrical reference signal for controlling the piezoelectric body.

9. The method of claim 7 in which step (f) further comprises:

receiving information for calibrating the determined phase difference signal to the concentration of blood glucose in the blood carrying tissue;

receiving the determined phase difference signal from step (e); and

determining the concentration of the blood glucose based upon the determined phase difference signal and the calibration information.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising obtaining the calibration information based on a first determined phase difference signal for a first known glucose concentration and a second determined phase difference signal for a second known glucose concentration and a predetermined linear relationship between the said-first and second phase difference signals and known glucose concentrations.

11. The method of claim 1, in which step (b) further comprises:

calibrating the reference and measurement electrical signals before performing step (d), the calibrating step further comprising:

selecting one of the measurement and reference optical beams as the calibrating optical beam;

passing the calibrating optical beam through a first cell of known thickness containing a solution corresponding to a first known concentration of glucose and determining a first data point corresponding to a measured phase difference for the first known concentration;

passing the calibration optical beam through a second cell of known thickness containing a solution corresponding to a second known concentration of glucose different from the first concentration and determining a second data point corresponding to a measured phase difference for the second known concentration; and

determining calibration data based on the first and second data points to calibrate a determined phase difference for the blood glucose to be measured in step (d).

12. The method of claim 11, in which selecting the calibrating optical beam further comprises selecting the reference optical beam and further comprises:

providing a movable cartridge containing the first cell and the second cell; and

moving the cartridge to present separately each of the first cell and the second cell to the reference optical beam and separately converting the transmitted optical beam through the first and second cells to first and second electrical measurement signals for determining the first and second data points; and

presenting neither of the first and second cells to the reference optical beam for measuring blood glucose in step (d).

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising, prior to each measurement performing the calibration prior to step (d).

14. The method of claim 13, in which each polarized-modulated laser beam is a near infrared wavelength laser beam in the range of 750 to 1000 nm.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising measuring the path length of the measurement optical beam through the blood carrying body part thickness.

16. The method of claim 15, in which the splitting step (d)(i) further comprises splitting the measurement optical beam using a beam splitter into a first transmitted measurement optical beam and a second transmitted measurement optical beam, providing the first transmitted measurement optical beam as the depolarized component, passing the second transmitted probe optical beam through a polarizer and providing the polarized second transmitted optical beam as the polarized component.

17. The method of claim 16, in which each polarized-modulated laser beam is a near infrared wavelength laser beam in the range of 750 to 1000 nm.

18. The method of claim 1 in which step (e) further comprises providing a phase sensitive homodyne receiver for receiving the reference and measurement electric signals and producing therefrom a phase difference signal.

19. The method of claim 1 in which step (f) further comprises:

receiving calibration information corresponding to a first and second determined phase difference signals based on two known concentrations of glucose and a predetermined relationship between the said two phase difference signals and said two known concentrations;

receiving the determined phase difference signal from step (e); and

determining the concentration of the glucose in the blood carrying body part based upon the determined phase difference signal and the calibration information.

20. The method of claim 1 wherein the modulation frequency is selected from between 650 Hz and 10 KHz.

21. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

(g) measuring the thickness of the blood carrying body part being illuminated by the measurement optical beam and providing a length signal corresponding to the measured thickness;

wherein step (f) further comprises determining the glucose concentration based on the determined phase difference and the measured length signal.

22. The method of claim 1 in which step (f) further comprises:

receiving information for calibrating the determined phase difference signal to the concentration of blood glucose in the blood carrying tissue;

receiving the determined phase difference signal from step (e); and

determining the concentration of the blood glucose based upon the determined phase difference signal and the calibration information.

23. The method of claim 1 in which step (f) further comprises:

measuring the thickness of the blood carrying tissue being illuminated by the probe optical beam as a length signal;

receiving information for calibrating the determined phase difference signal to the concentration of blood glucose in the blood carrying body part;

receiving the determined phase difference signal from step (e); and

determining the concentration of the blood glucose based upon the determined phase difference signal, the calibration information, and the length signal.

24. The method of claim 23 further comprising obtaining the calibration information based on a first determined phase difference signal for a first known glucose concentration and a second determined phase difference signal for a second known glucose concentration and a predetermined linear relationship between the said first and second phase difference signals and the said first and second known glucose concentrations.

25. The method of claim 1 further comprising, prior to passing the measurement optical beam through the blood carrying body part to measure blood glucose concentration non-invasively, conducting a start-up calibration procedure and a reference calibration procedu