Patent ID: 8444574

Claim:
A lancing system for extracting a body fluid from the skin of a human or animal, comprising a needle element for lancing the skin, a lancing device, including a lancet drive by which a lancing movement of the needle element is driven in a lancing direction, the needle element being coupled with the lancet drive by means of a coupling mechanism, wherein the lancing device comprises a housing with a housing opening at a front end thereof and the housing opening is surrounded by a housing skin contact surface which is pressed against the skin during use of the lancing device, the needle element is, during a forward phase of the lancing movement, moved on a predetermined lancing path in a lancing direction until a tip of the needle element enters the skin in order to create a wound and is again retracted in a return phase of the lancing movement after having reached a reversal point, the reversal point corresponding to the lancing depth in the skin, a lancing depth reference element is provided for improving the reproducibility of the lancing depth the lancing depth reference element comprising a reference skin contact surface and being adapted and arranged in such a manner that the reference skin contact surface is, at the reversal point of the lancing movement, in contact with the skin and the predetermined value of the lancing depth is determined by the distance in lancing direction that exists at the reversal point of the lancing movement between the reference skin contact surface and the position of the tip of the needle element, wherein the lancing depth reference element is adapted and arranged in such a manner that during the lancing a skin-deformation-stabilizing compressive force acts between the reference skin contact surface and the skin, and the skin-deformation-stabilizing compressive force is at most 7 N.