Editors' Choice—Review—In Vivo and In Vitro Microneedle Based Enzymatic and Non-Enzymatic Continuous Glucose Monitoring Biosensors

Abstract

Microneedles have emerged for transdermal monitoring of biomarkers, which are a miniaturized replica of hypodermic needles with length-scales of hundreds of micrometers, with a goal to achieve time-sensitive clinical information for routine point-of-care health monitoring. Transdermal biosensing via microneedles offers remarkable opportunities for moving biosensing technologies from research laboratories to real-field applications and enables development of easy-to-use point-of-care microdevices, minimally invasive, and with minimal-training features that are very attractive for both developed and emerging countries. This would eliminate the need for blood extraction using hypodermic needles and in turn, reduce the related problems such as infections in the patients, sample contaminations, and analysis artifacts. In this review, we provide a general overview of recent progress in microneedle-based sensing research, including: (a) in-vivo microneedle diagnostic systems for glucose monitoring with an emphasis on sensor construction and general health monitoring (b) in-vitro use of microneedle sensors. The main objective of the review is to provide a thorough and critical analysis of recent advances and developments in microneedle research field and to bridge the gap between microneedles and biosensors.