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Published on: June 11, 2012
Continuous glucose monitor shows potential for early hypoglycemia detection in hospitalized patients
Margaret T Ryan1, Vincent W Savarese, Brian Hipszer
1Department of Medicine, The Artificial Pancreas Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Objective:
This study shows the potential of continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) for the detection of hypoglycemia in hospitalized patients.
Research Design And Methods:
A Medtronic Diabetes (Northridge, CA) CGMS iPro continuous glucose recorder was inserted into the subcutaneous tissue of a hospitalized orthopedic surgery patient with type 1 diabetes the day after a moderate hypoglycemia event. The interstitial fluid glucose concentration was recorded every 5 min. Both the patient and the hospital staff were blinded to the CGM data. Bedside capillary blood glucose measurements were performed per hospital protocol.
Results:
The CGM recorded a repeat severe episode of hypoglycemia the next day. The hospital-defined threshold for hypoglycemia (70 mg/dL) was crossed 4.5 h prior to the patient being found unconscious by the nursing staff.
Conclusion:
Data from the CGMS iPro Recorder illustrate the potential benefit of using a real-time CGM in the hospital to detect hypoglycemia in a more timely fashion compared to infrequent point-of-care glucose meter measurements.
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