How and when to use an alternative site in self-monitoring of blood glucose

Taking care of diabetic patients has considerably been improved for approximately fifty years both in the therapeutic field and in the glycaemia monitoring field. Prospective studies conducted on large cohorts have clearly shown the importance of taking optimal care of such patients in order to prevent the occurrence or aggravation of chronic diabetes-associated complications. However, despite the simplification of self-monitoring of blood glucose through technological developments, drawbacks, some of which are linked to the sampling site, the fingertip, still slow down the patients' compliance. The use of an alternative site seems to be one of the solutions to offer in order to improve their monitoring and hence, their metabolic control. The development of such a monitoring mode has been slowed down after revealing, in some studies, a probably physiological delay in the detection of glycaemia variations, at the level of the alternative sites. Despite such conflicting observations, interest of using such alternative sites is to be defined in self-monitoring. Beside fast glycaemia variations, it proved to be reliable.