The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 269 No 7216 p385
21 September 2002

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European Association for the Study of Diabetes (www.easd.org)

Accuracy of home blood-glucose monitors a cause for concern?

The accuracy of home glucose monitors dropped dramatically during the 1990s, according to a French study. Despite some improvements in the few years before 2000, they are no more accurate now than they were a decade ago.

Between 1988 and 1999 a diabetes clinic in Toul, France, asked all patients to bring their home glucose monitors with them to the clinic. Pre-prandial and post-prandial readings from the monitors were then compared with laboratory measurements. A total of 23,946 samples were compared in this way. The readings showed a huge variation, reaching a peak of a 16.4 per cent deviation for pre-prandial measurements in 1990 and a peak of 20.6 per cent for post-prandial measurements in 1996.

Only in 1997, 1998 and 1999 did deviations drop to a satisfactory level, say the researchers. But overall, the accuracy of devices was similar for 1989 and 1999.

Details of which monitors were tested were not released by the authors. The findings were presented at the 38th annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes, held in Budapest earlier this month.