Slashdot Mirror
Google Proposes 'Needle-less' System For Drawing Blood (thestack.com)
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.
Excellent, now when we browse the net, random websites can track us with our DNA.
As a diabetic I have to say this sounds pretty cool. Pricking fingers 3-4 times per day sucks. I would be happier if they found a way to restore insulin production to my pancreas, but I'll take what i can get.
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.
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 needles, they're concerned with the prick and the pain and the opening of their skin to exposure. This does the exact same thing that a needle does but instead of using a mechanically driven needle, it's using a kinetically driven micro-particle. The key to new forms of blood testing technologies is not needle-less, it's non-invasive, and this is still invasive.
So the big question is how much blood does it get through the micro-puncture? Is it enough to run a test? Glucose monitoring maybe, but not much more.
What happens if the aperture membrane is off slightly or fails and the negative pressure pulls from the environment and not directly from the skin puncture, leaving the micro-particle in the body? Now you've just introduced a foreign object that will be hard to remove; the FDA would want to have solid answers to this question before it's ever sold. In fact, I'd say this is years of clinical trials use away from being an actual product, since it directly introduces a foreign body into the blood stream and appears to be intended for personal use (clinics have blood draw products for glucose monitoring that are way better than this), which means it would need a personal use CLIA Waiver which is very hard to get. This is at least 5-7 years of 3 Phase clinical trials before this was every something deployable.
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!
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Still if it is a more convenient way for diabetics to get results, kudos. But if it is Google trying to compete with Theranos in the "we're going to measure 100+ different analytes from a teensy drop of blood drawn from a skin prick" market, they should probably confirm which analytes can be measured reproducibly in skin prick samples BEFORE announcing that they are measuring them. Theranos seems to be getting quite a comeuppance for not realizing that blood from a skin prick != venous blood.
I know perhaps 40 years ago, maybe 42, when I was a kid we got in a long line at my school to get some sort of shot. I can't remember whether it was an early flu shot or something else. But the new hotness at the time was indeed a hypospray (or needle-less injector). It did indeed hurt more than a needle. Quite a bit more actually. It was also the only time I have ever seen one. I don't know if they died off so quickly due to ineffectiveness, pain, or expense, but I never saw another one. I just checked Wikipedia for "jet injector" and it turns out they aren't used anymore due to cross-contamination and passing diseases like hepatitis from one injectee to another.
So this is their way of fulfilling that promise of No Evil?
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.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Wrong universe. Google is well on its way to becoming Omni Corp.
More like Umbrella Corp.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
My guess is the 'Micro particle' is a RFID chip with a tracking code broadcast from it.
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.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
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
Google is analyzing ... everything. 23andMe (funded by Google Ventures) is just the one you hear about most.
From all the comments the sticks in the mud probably still believe America has the best health care system in the world. The way these Neanderthals are still going today it is a wonder anyone makes it out alive. The first thing they do for a hospital stay is start sticking you like a pincushion with IV needles because you "have to have them". This is so invasive and damaging to the muscle and nerve cells that they even have to change locations because that entrance can become plugged. My brother still has complications from his pancreatic infection because of the IVs he had during his induced coma not to even mention the drug resistant infection he got from the blood transfusions in the emergency room. The next thing to go will be the oxygen masks and tubes. Researchers in Japan found a way to oxygenate the blood by mixing it in with the blood much like a dialysis patient goes through. The patient is already hooked up with needles and just needs the equipment to mix and return the oxygenated blood back. Breathing is not even required. This would free up the person to be able to talk to their family or friends at life's end when their communication would be most important. I feel this was taken from me at my mom's and dad's passing because they HAD TO HAVE oxygen blown down their lungs. The comment by jimmybuffet is right on that the attention should be to restore primary function and not just manage a condition. They should not be allowed to make outrageous fortunes from others medical issues. That is just wrong on so many levels it is hard to believe that we have become so accepting to this as what our medical treatments should be. Some of us are going to have a better world because we insist on it and will not settle for just what is there. We haven't reached the Star Trek world of medicine yet but Dr McCoy would approve of noninvasive bioscanning. The medical system has helped a lot of people but they also cause some harm to others. We aren't there yet. Keep pushing on.
Those are just letters in the Alphabet...
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
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...
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
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?
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.
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.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
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 sublingual Suboxone but I have made a great deal of study out of this. I always figured the doctor used a needle when they wanted the best bioavailability, why not learn how?
There is, of course, some risk but it's very overstated and justifiably so but there's no real reason to be worried unless you're injecting a bunch of air straight into your bloodstream. Feel free to look this up. I have. You can probably also ask your doctor, I have, but they might look at you funny. My doctor knows that I'm an addict. If I can't be honest with them then why bother having them?
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
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 butter.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
What about spring-loaded lancets? They use a similar principle - a thin metallic spike is launched by a spring, pierces the skin and then it's retracted by the spring back into its sheaf. It's nearly painless and much less scary than a regular lancet. See here for a demonstration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
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.
The little critters can draw (small amounts of) blood fairly painlessly, if it wasn't for the reaction to their saliva.
Think "Dig Dug", not "small 1ccm syringe".
How many 'micro-particles' are required to self-assemble into the permanent tracker.
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 contamination concerns still.
Also, in general, fingersticks for diabetics will eventually be relegated to being a calibration reference for CGM systems like Dexcom's G4/G5 (I believe Google Life Sciences is partnered with Dexcom now...) Technically you're not supposed to use a CGM to make treatment decisions without a fingerstick, that said - many diabetics (including myself) do make treatment decisions based on their Dexcom. You can make this system as convenient and painless as possible, it's not going to replace an automatic reading every 5 minutes.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
It's called taxes.
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
I'm a search engine, not a doctor!
The day Microsoft creates a product that doesn't suck, it will be known as the Microsoft Vaccuum Cleaner!