Continuous Glucose Monitoring in Critically Ill Patients With COVID-19: Results of an Emergent Pilot Study

Amidst the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) has emerged as an alternative for inpatient point-of-care blood glucose (POC-BG) monitoring. We performed a feasibility pilot study using CGM in critically ill patients with COVID-19 in the intensive care unit (ICU).

Single-center, retrospective study of glucose monitoring in critically ill patients with COVID-19 on insulin therapy using Medtronic Guardian Connect and Dexcom G6 CGM systems. Primary outcomes were feasibility and accuracy for trending POC-BG. Secondary outcomes included reliability and nurse acceptance. Sensor glucose (SG) was used for trends between POC-BG with nursing guidance to reduce POC-BG frequency from one to two hours to four hours when the SG was in the target range. Mean absolute relative difference (MARD), Clarke error grids analysis (EGA), and Bland-Altman (B&A) plots were calculated for accuracy of paired SG and POC-BG measurements.

CGM devices were placed on 11 patients: Medtronic (n = 6) and Dexcom G6 (n = 5). Both systems were feasible and reliable with good nurse acceptance. To determine accuracy, 437 paired SG and POC-BG readings were analyzed. For Medtronic, the MARD was 13.1% with 100% of readings in zones A and B on Clarke EGA. For Dexcom, MARD was 11.1% with 98% of readings in zones A and B. B&A plots had a mean bias of -17.76 mg/dL (Medtronic) and -1.94 mg/dL (Dexcom), with wide 95% limits of agreement.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, CGM is feasible in critically ill patients and has acceptable accuracy to identify trends and guide intermittent blood glucose monitoring with insulin therapy.