Google Proposes 'Needle-less' System For Drawing Blood (thestack.com) 91
An anonymous reader writes: Google has published a patent for a needle-free blood draw technology which could be incorporated into a wrist wearable or hand-held device. The patent filing explained that the system releases a pulse of gas into a barrel or 'hollow cylinder', containing a 'micro-particle' which can break through the skin and draw a small sample of blood. According to Google, once the drop of blood forms it is drawn up into the negative pressure barrel. This technique is a quicker and less invasive alternative to using needles, or other blood measures which administer pin pricks to the finger to release the blood. The patent, which is still pending, suggests that the mechanism could also provide a replacement for glucose testers used by diabetics.
DNA (Score:2, Funny)
Excellent, now when we browse the net, random websites can track us with our DNA.
Re: DNA (Score:3)
Yeah but think of all the cool free shit you'll get, scro!
Re: Still sounds like a needle to me! (Score:4, Funny)
Sounds like a hypospray to me. Didn't those fail because they hurt like a motherfucker?
Google is a god damned search engine, not a doctor!
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Wrong universe. Google is well on its way to becoming Omni Corp.
More like Umbrella Corp.
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Those are just letters in the Alphabet...
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Omni Corp didn't seem particularly "successful" to me. At least not from the 3 documentaries that I watched. Their attempts at new businesses seemed to be spectacular failures. Only the original 'Products' company seemed to make money hand over fist...
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Exactly!
I remember them - hurt like hell. Not only that - inject dirt from the skin that caused infections.
Here is the clue - the article does not mention "pain". To hard to figure that question might count? Why don't journalists do the obvious research to ask about even the basics? Bad idea - bad article.
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They were quite common when I was a lad. If you move, they scar. I still have one but you can't see it - it's under a tattoo. They were used, when I was enlisted, for our inoculations. I was born in 1957 but spent most of my years living on or near base as my father was a career Marine.
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Sounds like a hypospray to me. Didn't those fail because they hurt like a motherfucker?
Google is a god damned search engine, not a doctor!
Air "needles" in your arm, ads up your ass - be thankful it's not the other way around.
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I think they tended to inject bad stuff into people too.
What happens when there is nasty bacteria on your skin and the pulse of the gas pushes that into your blood stream?
Re:Still sounds like a needle to me! (Score:5, Interesting)
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Honestly, the complexity and description of this really reminds me of those needleless injectors. They're kind of notorious for bruising and actually being more painful than a fine needle - which is why no one with diabetes (including myself) use them. There's no way anything involving air pressure and vacuum barrels is going to be smaller than most lancing devices. It could be useful for mass high-volume testing in hospitals or something... But even with the removal of needles there are so many contami
As a diabetic (Score:5, Interesting)
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I am kind of surprised that I remembered this:
http://science.slashdot.org/st... [slashdot.org]
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So you would save several small needle sticks a day to get pretty accurate results for thousands, if not tens of thousands of small needle sticks in the matter of a few minutes that I'd imagine aren't any more accurate.
They already have devices that can give instant readings and alert if blood sugar is too low. They're called continuous glucose monitors. Unfortunately though they still require a stick.
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CGM's such as Dexcom's G4 are pretty close to this. The main disadvantage is you need to insert the sensor under your skin once every 7 days... But then fingersticks are only needed for calibration purposes after that.
Well technically you're not supposed to make treatment decisions without a confirmation fingerstick, but... Most diabetics including myself will go for the carbs if there's any possibility the CGM is correct when it says 55.
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Re: As a diabetic (Score:2)
As a doctor I would never consider safer a thing that is continually piercing your skin, or worse, is perpetually indwelling in a blood vessel. The danger of infection, thrombosis, autoimmune response and a lot of other nasty stuff is just too high. Not to mention that long term iv lines are also subject to the danger of abuse or misuse (albeit this only applies to some people).
Genetic therapy for diabetes holds a lot of promise, restoring the pancreas' ability to secrete insulin is the only cure, anything
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I've a sibling with a picc and a port. The picc is a Y with two inlets. I pay for the vast majority of hear health care and it's costly but that's the way the cookie crumbles. She's also diabetic and wears an insulin pump. It's pink. She's also mentally ill. She's pretty well fucked. I don't envy her but that morphine drip does look like it'd be fun. She's got flat veins so they have started to run out of places to put the picc. She's got the port for TPN. :/ Yeah, she's screwed. She wants hospice, end-of-l
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There's scientific evidence now, [telegraph.co.uk] too.
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Fascinating article re: Diabeetus type 2: http://www.sciencedaily.com/re... [sciencedaily.com]
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As a diabetic, I'm actually not too impressed. Remember needleless injectors? Yeah, they do exist and are still in use in cases where people want to give mass vaccinations in an assembly-line fashion, but they're actually much more painful than needles. This patent sounds a LOT like a needleless injector. All of that mechanical complexity is going to make it significantly larger (and hence less convenient) than a traditional lancing device.
Its benefit is minimal since fingersticks are on their way to be
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And shooting a ball (or other projectile) is going to be much better? Caveat - I'm not a diabetic, yet. But with both parents now insulin-dependent, and one of two siblings too ... I'm not in doubt about which way things are going to go for me.
Wait a minute (Score:2)
So it's a freakin' gun? What happens to these micro-particles? You'll be filling your bloodstream with micro-bullets?
I'd still choose the needle, thank you very much.
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In all seriousness, it kind of makes more sense to embed a device in the body, somewhere in the blood flow, based around Rfid style technology. Device stays inactive until a query is transmitted, then uses that energy to carry out a test cycle and respond. You eliminate every thing from the device beyond the energy conversion circuit, the testing circuit and the transmitter. It also only works when you want it to work, being passive the rest of the time. This would enable more device to be inserted to test
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You just (mostly) described the Dexcom G4.
Sensor wire that effectively acts as a fuel cell powered by glucose is embedded under the skin for 7 days. (measures interstitial fluid glucose concentration instead of measuring blood directly). On top of the sensor wire is a small clip that a transmitter clips into. This periodically samples data and transmits it with a very low-power RF transmitter (TI proprietary protocol) every 5 minutes. 6 months battery life for the transmitter.
The new G5 system uses BLE,
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Right. But the jet of gas necessary to propel a droplet of water with enough force to pierce skin isn't. There's a name for resulting type of injury:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
How much blood? (Score:1)
This sounds like an engineering project in search of an application. Using a micro-particle in this fashion is relatively clever, but it doesn't solve anything useful as far as I can tell. It's basically using a micro-particle fired at high velocity into your skin with a negative pressure behind it, so once it punctures the skin the negative pressure in the tube draws up blood. Most people I know who do not enjoy the invasiveness of regular blood tests like diabetics are not so much concerned with needle
Do no evil they said. (Score:2)
Back on topic, yes this might be a nice solution to these single drop only analyses.
Why it should be Google?
I hope there will be safeguards against them including our body's make-up in their already scary data base.
"Micro Particle" (Score:3)
My guess is the 'Micro particle' is a RFID chip with a tracking code broadcast from it.
Where have I heard this before? (Score:2)
A thin, hollow cylinder breaks the skin, then uses negative pressure to draw blood up into it? Don't we have those?
Oh, yeah. It's called a syringe
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Depending on your insulin needle, you'll need to inject at least two of them, full of air, directly into the bloodstream, to be at risk unless you manage to get it into an artery in which case you'll need about .5 mL before you're even remotely at risk.
This does not mean inject air. This means that you're better of using safe injection practices and spending that time making sure your kit is clean than getting every tiny bubble out of the rig. I no longer, often, use IV for my ingestion because I'm using su
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As stated above. None. Not even on an infant. You need a lot more air then the movies would have you believe. You'd probably have to simultaneously use tens and thousands of these for it to be harmful. There is, literally, no measurable risk here unless you want a contrived situation where somehow someone affixes tens of thousands of these things across their body, in just the right spots, at just the right depths, and manages to fire them all at once. You'd have better luck harming yourself with a stick of
Think "Dig Dug". (Score:2)
Think "Dig Dug", not "small 1ccm syringe".
Dr. McCoy would be pleased. (Score:1)
Re: Dr. McCoy would be pleased. (Score:2)
I am sorry about your losses and the things your brother went through, but taking the blood out of your body to mix it with oxygen and then reintroducing it back is really an immense risk added to the patient. Look up the risks associated with extracorporeal circulation, look up acquired von Willebrand deficit, look up venous thrombosis.
You can say whatever you feel like, however it doesn't change the fact that external ventilation (look up NIV as well) is still the best way to get oxygen in the body who ne
Spring-loaded lancets? (Score:2)
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Huh, that IS a regular lancet device...
Well, at least as someone who has been a Type I diabetic for over 20 years, that's what I consider "regular"...
So puncturing the body with a foreign object ... (Score:2)
Um okay.
I don't know if I want to repeatedly shoot myself with micro-particles. Especially since injuries caused by injecting high-pressure gas under the skin aren't pretty.
They need to take pointers from mosquitoes. (Score:2)
Left out (Score:2)
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Goverment Has Already Done This! (Score:1)
It's called taxes.
Dammit Jim! (Score:2)