[Glucose control in the critically ill. Innovations and contemporary strategies]

Glucose control should be part of standard therapy in intensive care units (ICU) due to the proven association of hyperglycemia with increased morbidity and mortality. Due to the results of the latest randomized controlled multicentre trials blood glucose target levels of 140-180 mg/dl are currently recommended. In critically ill patients glucose monitoring should not be performed using point of care (POC) devices because of inacceptable inaccuracies. Blood gas analyzers have been shown to be accurate and are mostly available nearly at the bedside. Currently new continuous glucose monitoring devices for critically ill patients using multiple technologies are under development. Depending on the accuracy and reliability these new devices will add to selective blood glucose measurements to close the time gap between measurements or will even replace these measurements. Continuous, intravenous insulin therapy according to an algorithm should be performed by nursing staff. Computerized algorithms followed by so-called dynamic paper algorithms yield the best results. Besides mean glucose levels, glucose variability and glucose complexity are also associated with outcome in critically ill patients and might therefore be future target parameters. Critically ill diabetic patients might benefit from different glucose target levels depending on the preadmission glucose control. Hypoglycemic events <80 mg/dl should be avoided because of the association with poor outcome.