Selection of the most informative near infrared spectroscopy wavebands for continuous glucose monitoring in human serum

By controlling the blood glucose levels of diabetics permanent diabetes-related problems such as blindness and loss of limbs can be delayed or even avoided. Therefore, many researchers have aimed at the development of a non-invasive sensor to monitor the blood glucose level continuously. As non-invasive measurements through the skin, the ear lobe or the gums have proven to be either unreliable or impractical, attention has recently shifted to minimally invasive sensors which measure the glucose content in serum or interstitial fluid. Thanks to the development of on-chip spectrometers minimally invasive, implantable devices are coming within reach. However, this technology does not allow to acquire a large number of wavelengths over a broad range. Therefore, the most informative combination of a limited number of variables should be selected. In this study, Interval PLS (iPLS), Variable Importance in Projection (VIP), Uninformative Variable Elimination (UVE), Bootstrap-PLS coefficients, Moving window, CorXyPLS, Interval Random Frog-PLS and combinations of these methods were used in order to address the question whether the short wave band (800-1500 nm), first overtone band (1500-1800 nm), the combination band (2050-2300 nm) or a combination of them is the most informative region for glucose measurements and which wavebands should be measured within these wavelength ranges. The three different data sets employed focus on the determination of (1) glucose in aqueous solutions over the 1-30 mM range in presence of urea and sodium D-lactate, (2) glucose in aqueous solutions over the 2-16 mM range in presence of icodextrin and urea and (3) glucose in human serum samples. The best results for the first, second and third data sets were obtained by selecting 40, 130 and 20 variables resulting in a PLS model with an RMSEP of 0.56, 0.59 and 1.5 mM, respectively. It was found that the first overtone band is most informative for aqueous solutions, while for glucose measurement of serum samples the combination band was found to be the better choice.