ABSTRACT
While the various applications in this chapter are listed by topic — blood chemistry, blood oxygen, and so forth — there may be overlaps or applications where a single application is difficult to assign.
One of the most publicized and pursued uses of near-infrared (NIR) in the life sciences is for in situ glucose measurements. Anumber of patents for noninvasive blood-glucose devices have been issued. For instance, the one developed by Ham and Cohen [1], patent number 5,553,616, where the light is passed through the finger. The poster, by Gabriely et al. [2] acquired spectral data from the thumb and used it to measure clinically relevant plasma glucose scanning from 400 to 1700 nm with a fiber-optic probe.
