OBSQlip
Non-invasive measurement of hemoglobin
OptoQ AB is a medical device company that markets and sells technology platforms for safe and cost effective patient-monitoring. The company has developed a light based fibre-optic patient monitoring technique focusing on non-invasive measurement of hemoglobin and other physiological parameters for medical diagnostics.
Optical Blood Sensor Qlip, OBSQlip, is a patented technical platform which enables very accurate measuring of blood parameters using light. While other technologies demand the use of special disposable cuvettes, which make the measurements more expensive, OBSQlip is attached directly to the bloodlines and delivers measurement data to the main instrument (for example a dialysis machine or a respirator).
Bloodstream hemoglobin concentration is one of the parameters measured. Others include blood oxygen or hemolysis levels.
Dialysis patients with temporary or a permanent kidney malfunction need dialysis treatment two or three times a week. This treatment purifies the body by filtrating water and waste products through the blood and restores among other thing the pH of the body something that normally our kidneys take care of. The treatment, named HemoDialys, entails the patients blood being pumped through a system of tubing (called bloodlines) and passing through advanced filters and measurement systems. With HemoQlip, which is an application of the OBSQlip technical platform, the variation of the fluid balance in the blood system of a dialysis patient can be measured easily and at no extra cost, so that based on this information the process (ultra filtration) can be swiftly regulated. HemoQlip is licensed to Fresenius Medical Care since the fall of 2004.
Hemolysis is another word for punctuated red corpuscles and it implies that the quantity of red blood corpuscles, the carriers of oxygen, is diminishing in an abnormal manner. This can lead to lack of oxygen in the organs of the body, but is most of all an indication of the blood system being abnormally affected. By measuring the level of hemolysis in the blood passing through a dialysis machine, one can avoid serious detrimental affects to the patient resulting from the bloodline and filters contaminated or wrongly attached. With the OBSQlip technology, indications of blood hemolysis are obtained earlier than by other methods.
