Design, fabrication, and feasibility analysis of a colorimetric detection system with a smartphone for self-monitoring blood glucose

Maintaining appropriate insulin levels is very important for diabetes patients. Effective monitoring of blood glucose can aid in maintaining the body’s insulin level, and thus reduce disease severities, secondary complications, and related mortalities. However, existing blood glucose measurement devices are inconvenient to carry and involve complex procedures, reducing the willingness of diabetes patients to regularly measure blood glucose. We aim to provide a rapid, convenient, and portable meter for diabetes patients. We introduce an integrated blood glucose detection device (IBGDD) that has no electronic component and uses the optical sensing module of a smartphone to inspect colorimetric blood strips. To demonstrate accuracy conformance of the developed device to the ISO 15197:2013 standard for blood glucose measurement, 20 diabetes mellitus patients used the IBGDD with smartphones to measure their blood glucose level. The measurement results revealed an accuracy of 100%, completely satisfying the requirements of the ISO 15197:2013 standard. Overall, our specially designed IBGDD with a smartphone could achieve high accuracy and convenient usage for the measurement of blood glucose concentration. Furthermore, the device is highly portable and simple to operate. This contributes toward achieving self-monitoring of blood glucose by diabetes patients and improved mobile health in the future.