Optical fiber as the basis of a real-time blood test system

Fiber has literally changed the world — thanks to the creation and use of fiber, data transmission has become much faster than ever before. In addition to network equipment, fiber is used in some other areas of science and technology, and now doctors will be able to use it for a quick blood test in real time.

The new system allows almost instantly detect the presence of certain substances in human blood, which are "markers" of a particular disease. The technology is still being developed, but the first prototypes have already shown the broad capabilities of the new system.
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The system consists of a "probe", which is immersed directly in the blood, and a blood analysis system, which has a size equal to the size of the tablet. Actually, this is the whole “laboratory”, which replaces all the equipment of a modern blood analysis laboratory, with its centrifuges, electronic analyzers and all the rest.

In the system, the most important element is the probe itself, which is an optical fiber with a system of reflectors and an external coating that binds certain blood substances, the very “markers,” if present. Light travels through the fiber, reflecting the reflector system onto the inner surface. Then the light is reflected from the walls, and enters the spectrometer. If the outer coating “bound” the molecules of the corresponding substances, then the spectrum of the reflected light beam changes, and the spectrometer “intersects” it.



As a result, the doctor immediately sees what substances are in the blood, which allows to detect the corresponding abnormalities / diseases.

Of course, there are some difficulties here - after all, the coating that binds the “markers” must be universal and be able to respond to most of the important markers in human blood.

Prototypes of the system, as mentioned above, showed good results. Thus, the system is now able to respond to the presence of a substance whose concentration in the blood is only 2 nanograms per liter. The cost of such a system, when it starts to be produced on an industrial scale, will be significantly lower than the cost of the existing blood analysis systems.

Well, besides the blood test, such a system can be used to determine the quality of water, monitor the status of water resources in a particular region, etc.

Via extremetech