Influence of Blood Glucose Level on the Scattering Coefficient of the Skin in Near-Infrared Spectroscopy

Various non-invasive glucose monitoring methods using near-infrared spectroscopy have been investigated although no method has been successful so far. Our previous study has proposed a new promising method utilizing numerically generated absorbance spectra instead of the experimentally acquired absorbance spectra. The method suggests that the correct estimation of the optical properties is very important for numerically generating the absorbance spectra. The purpose of this study is to measure the change in the optical properties of the skin with the change in the blood glucose level in vivo. By measuring the reflectances of light incident on the skin surface at two distances from the incident point, the optical properties of the skin can be estimated. The estimation is a kind of the inverse problem based on the simulation of light propagation in the skin. Phantom experiments have verified the method and in vivo experiments are to be performed.