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The BBC reports on an implantable blood testing device, presented at the DATE13 conference.

The prototype is 14mm long and can check on five different substances in the blood, including glucose and cholesterol. It is implanted under the skin and sends back data using Bluetooth. It is currently being tested on animals and it is hoped that it will be available to patients within four years.

Swallowed capsules provide an alternative to endoscopes for gastrointestinal imaging. However, capsules produce lower resolution images and so are unsuitable for many investigations.

A new tethered capsule has been developed, which retains many of the benefits of capsules while providing cross-sectional microscopic images of the gut wall at 30μm × 7 μm resolution.

The new tethered capsule can rapidly provide three-dimensional, microstructural images of the upper gastrointestinal tract in a simple and painless procedure, opening up new opportunities for screening for internal diseases.

Britain’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has approved the WatchBP Home A for use.

The machine is designed to be used regularly by patients at home to take their blood pressure and pulse, for example to diagnose or monitor treatment of high blood pressure. However, unlike normal blood pressure machines, it also includes an atrial fibrillation detection system.

The new recommendations highlight the benefits of being able to detect atrial fibrillation by chance when looking for high blood pressure. AFA estimates that around a third of people with AF have not been diagnosed.

Scientists at the University of Vermont found that they were able to identify lung infections by testing exhaled air.

Using secondary electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (SESI-MS) to identify volatile organic compounds in the breath of mice, the scientists were not only able to tell which mice were infected but also which strain of bacteria was involved.

Breath analysis is still at an early stage of development but offers the potential for much quicker diagnoses than culturing samples. Extensive work is required to build up a database of VOC fingerprints for different infections and to show that SESI-MS can reliably identify infections in humans.