Non-invasive measurement of blood water content using infrared light

Hematocrit is an important hematological parameter used by doctors in a range of clinical applications, ranging from the ICU to the dialysis unit. At present, the hematocrit test is done by taking a blood sample and sending it to a blood lab. This is expensive, invasive (a needle is used to draw blood) and takes time.

The collaboration between UMC Amsterdam and HaemoPulse aims to develop a new medical device to measure the hematocrit with infrared light as blood pulses through the finger of the patient. This way of measuring hematocrit would mean no needles, expensive blood labs and instant measurement of hematocrit. This opens potential for patients to even monitor their own hematocrit (very useful for dialysis patients or elderly for example), for doctors to continuously monitor internal bleeding of ICU patients, and large savings in time and money if it can replace current hematocrit tests.

At UMC Amsterdam alone, the hematocrit is a value returned by 500 blood tests a day, requiring time of trained staff from doctors to nurses, expensive lab analysis and a delay of hours before a result is known. Development of a simple to use medical device, requiring no special training to use, eliminating the need for blood samples and instantaneous measurement would not have both financial and clinical impact. For example, real-time monitoring of changing hematocrit in the intensive care unit could be used as a diagnostic tool for patient fluid balance.

Over the course of this project, the collaboration of UMC Amsterdam’s dept. of Biomedical Physics, and HaemoPulse aims to develop, build, validate and bring to market a new medical device to the clinic. The finished device would cost several hundred euros and be capable of thousands of measurements, roughly the same cost as a single blood test currently.