This paper presents the current state of the art of noninvasive glucose monitoring. In recent years, we can observe constant increase in the incidence of diabetes. About 40% of all performed blood tests apply to the glucose tests. Formerly, this lifestyle disease occurred mainly in rich countries, but now it is becoming more common in poorer countries. It is related to the increase in life expectancy, unhealthy diet, lack of exercise, and other factors. Untreated diabetes may cause many complications or even death. For this reason, daily control of glucose levels in people with this disorder is very important. Measurements with a traditional glucometer are connected with performing finger punctures several times a day, which is painful and uncomfortable for patients. Therefore, researches on other methods are ongoing. A method that would be fast, noninvasive and cheap could also enable testing the state of the entire population, which is necessary because of the number of people currently living with undiagnosed type 2 diabetes. Although the first glucometer was made in 1966, the first studies on glucose level measurement in tear film were documented as early as 1937. This shows how much a noninvasive method of diabetes control is needed. Since then, there have been more and more studies on alternative methods of glucose measurement, not only from tear fluid, but also from saliva, sweat, or transdermally.
Pathological process often modifies the structure of the soft tissue and can lead changes of mechanical properties. The regularity of this relationship has already been used in the elastography and currently it is applied in medical diagnostic. Tissue stiffness can be identified by a quick measurement but more accurate details can be obtained only by biopsy. Studies, presented in a scientific literature, focus only on pathological stiffness or consider only changes in biochemical structure. These researches revealed two very important components of those modifications -elastin and collagen. Soft tissues are multicomponent, inhomogeneous and anisotropic structures. Their functionality depends on complicated processes on molecular level. Probably the individual components of the tissue can effect on each other. They may promote creation of processes, which can participate in modifications of elasticity. For this reason, it is very important to relate changes on the structural level with mechanical properties. This information can be very helpful in diagnosis and treatment of soft tissue disease.
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