When will this be ready for clinical use?
Early research has been promising, but much more is needed before interstitial fluid sensors can be verified and approved.
Manufacturing will be a challenge. Producing these sensors at scale, without sacrificing consistency or quality, won’t be cheap, said Dr. Heikenfeld. Today’s continuous glucose monitors took decades and hundreds of millions of dollars to develop.
Still, the groundwork has been laid.
“As we all pivot more towards interstitial fluid, there’s a proven roadmap of success that the big diagnostic companies over decades have cut their teeth on,” said Dr. Heikenfeld.
For now, scientists are refining sensors and figuring out how to protect them from other body fluids while in use, Dr. Wang said. But if it all comes together, the result could be game-changing.
Dr. Wang’s lab is developing a system that can monitor glucose and lactate or glucose and alcohol – which could become available in as little as 2 years, he said.
In the next decade, Dr. Wang predicted, we’ll be able to measure a dozen markers with one simple patch.
A version of this article originally appeared on WebMD.com.