Printed organic electronic sensors for glucose detection in human saliva

Abstract

Diabetes mellitus is a chronic condition which is approaching epidemic levels globally. Sufferers of diabetes require regular monitoring of their blood glucose levels for successful treatment and the current widely used methods are invasive and painful. There is therefore an urgent need for simple, noninvasive methods of blood glucose concentration monitoring. Saliva is a medium whose glucose concentration correlates well with that of glucose in blood, while readily allowing noninvasive and pain-free sampling. Here, we demonstrate organic enzymatic glucose sensors fabricated at pilot-scale and at low cost, which show high sensitivity to glucose in human saliva for biologically relevant concentrations (up to 0.2 mM) and a limit of detection of 0.029 mM. Additionally, we show that the devices are highly selective for glucose in the presence of key interferents such as ascorbic acid and uric acid.