Assessing glucose meter accuracy

Self-monitoring of blood glucose plays an important role in the management of diabetes, particularly in patients treated with insulin. Blood glucose meters must have sufficient accuracy to allow patients and clinicians to monitor glycemic control and then modify treatment accordingly. Although several standards have been proposed, a consensus about how to measure glucose meter accuracy is not available.

An informal review of recently published articles dealing with glucose meter accuracy was conducted to provide recommendations for evaluating accuracy relevant to the practicing clinician.

Whether in clinical practice or in accuracy studies, the accuracy of blood glucose meters is typically determined by comparing meter results to those obtained by a clinical laboratory method on samples collected from the same patient at the same time. However, multiple sample-related, analysis-related, and data display-related factors can have an impact on accuracy determination. Clinicians need to recognize these factors and take steps to minimize their impact when assessing the accuracy of glucose meters used by their patients.

Although modern glucose meters show variable results with respect to analytical measures of accuracy, error grid analysis demonstrates that measurements deemed clinically acceptable approach 100%.