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Comment by bh42222 | Hacker News Reader

The non-invasive restriction seems bad to me. Or is it there to get around government crated problems, which I could agree with?

I think the medical tricoder is completely non-invasive on TV, because it's a great way to create the fantasy of the future. As in, the doctor does not even need to touch you!

In the real world labs on chips have come quite far and could go even further. A scratch of skin or tiny droplet of blood could provide an incredible amount of information about your health.

So let's not artificially restrict what the device might be capable of, without good reason.

In fact I think the lab on chip type of analysis is the most interesting part. Measuring pulse, blood pressure, and respiration rate all seem pretty easily achievable.

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I'd think that the non-invasive restriction is most likely related to the FDA's distinction between significant risk devices and non significant risk devices. In addition to traditional study approvals(Independent Review Board etc.), significant risk devices require FDA approval to begin testing for effectiveness (IDE applications) and are fraught with risk.

I don't remember offhand if finger-stick blood glucose testing devices are termed significant risk devices or if they are given exemptions. If these devices are given exemptions, then this would likely be a good precedent to follow to execute lab on a chip type devices.

I agree that the lab on a chip analysis represents the most exciting part of the implementation, but I also think that it would be interesting to see what types of associations we can get with usual metrics such as pulse, blood pressure, etc. when the data is more easily obtained.

Further information on significant and non-significant risk devices is available on the FDA website: http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/DeviceRegulationandGuidanc...

Among other things, it would get around sanitation problems. By being non-invasive, there are less things that one has to worry about keeping perfectly clean, which is a good thing in the field.

People without medical training shouldn't be using a diagnostic tool that draws blood. Especially if there hasn't been several third-party (read: government) analyses showing that the tool sterilizes itself properly, even when not used by a skilled technician.

It takes only a small amount of training to safely use a blood glucose meter, which is a diagnostic tool that draws blood.

...And is a great vector for hepatitis infection:

http://diabetes.webmd.com/news/20111025/panel-recommends-hep...

I'm for a "no blood" tool at first at least. BGMs are cheap and prevalent.

That reminded me of something, I read a while ago:

http://quantifiedself.com/2011/08/nancy-dougherty-on-mindful...

OK, not Non-Intrusive, but quite interesting, I think.

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