Outpatient use of intermediate- and short-acting semisynthetic human insulins

To determine if semisynthetic human insulins are useful in the outpatient management of insulin-dependent diabetes, the conditions of eight patients were evaluated for three months using short- and intermediate-acting insulins. No complications of either insulin preparation were observed. Hemoglobin A1c levels were decreased from 8.4% to 6.9% during human insulin use, and, in addition, normal hemoglobin A1c levels were maintained in patients using portable insulin infusion pumps. These results were achieved because of the health care provision team and were not directly the result of human insulin. Semisynthetic human insulins were also associated with lower levels of circulating insulin antibody. These data indicate that both short- and intermediate-acting semisynthetic human insulins are effective in stringent diabetes metabolic control, provided adequate health care provision is available.