Influence of contact state on NIR diffuse reflectance spectroscopy in vivo

In the practice of non-invasive blood glucose measurement by near-infrared (NIR) diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, an optical probe usually directly contacts skin in order to eliminate specular reflection. In this paper, the influence of contact state on the diffuse reflectance in vivo and the variation trend of diffuse reflectance with contact time under the same contact pressure, are investigated at wavelengths ranging from I 100 to 1700 run. The result shows that the diffuse reflectance decreases with increasing contact pressure under the contact state. At a certain applied pressure, the diffuse reflectance fluctuates significantly at the beginning of contact, and the fluctuation becomes stable with elapsing contacting time. It is our aim in this paper to find out the optimal contact state and optimal measuring time, in order to reduce the influence of contact pressure on diffuse reflectance measurements. It is found from our experiments that, for in vivo measurement, the optimal contact state appears when the skin is pressed to about 0.5 mm by the probe, where the probe contacts the palm entirely, and that the optimal measuring time is at the 30th second since the probe contacting with the measuring site. Putting the above conclusions into practice, the repeatability of spectra is improved greatly.