Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy for rapid monitoring of glucose uptake on small animals in vivo

Enhanced glucose uptake in many types of cancers regardless of the aerobic state has been routinely used as a clinical biomarker for tumor diagnosis. Rapid monitoring of glucose uptake in small animal models in vivo has been explored to study the role of tumor metabolism in therapeutic response. The available techniques for in vivo glucose uptake imaging like PET and fluorescence-based optical techniques have their limitation on the equipment cost, signal process and ease of techniques. To further minimize the optical device cost and maximize the ease of the technique, we report a low-cost diffuse reflectance spectroscopy tool along with a novel algorithm for accurate monitoring of glucose uptake in small animal models. Rather than looking at fluorescence, our proposed approach focuses on the absorption properties of 2-NBDG from which the 2-NBDG concentrations can be accurately and rapidly estimated by examining the absorption-caused diffuse reflectance changes. We expect the developed technology could be a useful tool for glucose uptake monitoring on small animals, which may advance the cancer research.