medwireNews: Not all sites on the body are equal when it comes to the placement of the FreeStyle® Libre™ flash glucose monitor on patients with type 1 diabetes, say researchers.
Pieter Gillard (University Hospitals Leuven – KU Leuven, Belgium) and team found that placing the monitor (from Abbott Diabetes Care, Alameda, California, USA) on the upper thigh gave comparable readings to those obtained from upper arm placement, and therefore “might be suggested as [an] alternative for the upper arm in patients who find the latter site too visible.”
Over 14 days, measurements from both these sites varied by between 9.5% and 12.3% from capillary blood glucose measurements the 23 patients took at least seven times daily, except in the case of hypoglycemic measurements for which the difference was up to 22.2%.
But siting the monitor on the abdomen resulted in decreased accuracy, with measurements varying by 15.5% to 19.5%, and by 22.2% for hypoglycemia.
These findings are “in contrast to non-factory calibrated sensors which are recommended to be placed on the abdomen and can also be inserted in arm and gluteus without accuracy loss,” the team notes in Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism.
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