Artificial pancreas

Details Artificial pancreas Artificial pancreas

1990-03-21

1992-05-05

Pellegrino, Stephen C.

Surgery

Truss

Pad

128637, 604 66, 422 63, A61B 173

Patent

active

051098660

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to an artificial pancreas.
It is known that the pancreas has a twin function. The first is a digestive function, by means of the acini which it contains, the pancreas secreting digestive enzymes into the duodenum. The second is a regulatory function, the pancreas stabilizing the level of glucose present in the blood by means of the islets of Langherhans which secrete at least four hormones.
The role of the pancreas is therefore to stabilize the blood glycemia (sic) (blood glucose level). It is this function to which the present invention relates. The pancreas achieves this by means of several hormones, of which the main one is insulin. Whatever the glucose absorbed, the blood glycemia (sic) should not vary greatly about an average value, which is of the order of 0.9 g/l (grams per liter); this is the case in nondiabetic subjects.
In the case of a healthy subject, the glycemia oscillates between 0.5 and 1.5 g/l depending on the subject and the time of day.
A diabetic is a person whose blood glucose level is not stabilized by the organ. When there is diabetes, the glycemia can exceed 1.5 g/l (hyperglycemia) or be less than 0.5 g/l (hypoglycemia).
The artificial pancreas which is the subject of the invention is an extracorporeal device (not intended to be implanted) which is designed to return the glucose level (glycemia) to a normal value by means of programmed injection of insulin and/or glucose
The artificial pancreas is presented as a closedloop system in which the glucose level is the variable to be controlled. The system functions by injecting insulin or glucose, whose delivery rate has been calculated on the basis of the glycemia of a blood sample, this by means of an algorithm previously defined by therapists and integrated in the program.
This artificial pancreas is not designed to be used permanently on a diabetic, but to be used temporarily, for example for a period of the order of one day, for examining a patient in order to establish his requirements and his reactions to the insulin or glucose injection, this in order to be able to determine with accuracy the treatment which is suitable for him and which will be prescribed subsequently for him.
In the known devices of this type, the measurement of the glycemia is generally carried out by the traditional method (wet-state chemistry) which is lengthy, laborious, and requires qualified personnel; more modern methods have been proposed, particularly in document EP-A-098 592, which proposes an artificial pancreas in which the measurement of the glycemia is carried out by electro-polarographic means, which makes it possible to operate automatically; however, this equipment appears to be relatively sophisticated, very expensive and difficult to use.
The present invention aims to resolve these problems by proposing a device of the type mentioned, whose unit for measuring the glycemia is strong and durable, relatively inexpensive, gives accurate and reliable results, and lends itself to complete automation of the operation. This result is essentially achieved by virtue of the fact that the measuring technique employed is a proven technique in dry-state chemistry, consisting in reading by optical means the color taken by the glycemia-reactive zone of a strip, on which zone the blood sample has previously been deposited in the form of a droplet. This type of measurement is currently carried out periodically by diabetics, who can thus check their glycemia level themselves.
It is for this reason that the main aim of the invention is to integrate this proven measurement technique in an artificial pancreas, and this by automatizing the procedure.
The artificial pancreas which is the subject of the invention comprises a unit for automatic and periodical withdrawal of blood samples from the body of a patient, a unit for measuring the level of glucose present in this sample (glycemia), a unit for injection of a dose of insulin or glucose into the body of the patient, and a unit for calculation and data processing able to determine the

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