Technical note: Glucose concentration in dairy cows measured using 6 handheld meters designed for human use

Area of Science:

• Veterinary Medicine
• Animal Science
• Clinical Diagnostics

Background:

• Accurate blood glucose monitoring is crucial for dairy cow health management.
• Existing handheld glucose meters are designed for human use, raising questions about their applicability in cattle.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the precision and accuracy of six human handheld glucose meters for measuring blood glucose in dairy cows.
• To compare the performance of these meters against a laboratory reference method.

Main Methods:

• Blood samples from 97 Jersey and crossbreed cows were analyzed using six handheld glucose meters (Accu-Chek Aviva Plus, Aga Matrix, Contour Next, FreeStyle Precision Neo, Nova Max Plus, Precision Xtra).
• Triplicate measurements were performed for each meter.
• Plasma glucose was quantified using the hexokinase glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase laboratory reference method.

Main Results:

• Precision varied among meters, with Accu-Chek Aviva Plus showing the lowest coefficient of variation (2.2%).
• Lin's concordance correlation coefficients ranged from 0.48 (Aga Matrix) to 0.75 (FreeStyle Precision Neo).
• All meters exhibited bias, with wide limits of agreement; bias constituted a significant portion of the total observed error, ranging from 56.2% to 81.5%.

Conclusions:

• Despite satisfactory precision in some meters (Accu-Chek Aviva Plus, Contour Next, Precision Xtra), none demonstrated sufficient accuracy for measuring blood glucose in dairy cows.
• Significant bias and wide limits of agreement were observed across all evaluated devices.
• Future research should explore the development of cattle-specific algorithms to enhance the accuracy and precision of handheld glucose meters for veterinary use.