What is Hypoglycemia in Patients with Well-Controlled Type 1 Diabetes Treated by Subcutaneous Insulin Pump with Use of the Continuous Glucose Monitoring System?

Continuous glucose monitoring reduces both hypoglycaemia and HbA1c in hypoglycaemia-prone type 1 diabetic patients treated with a portable pump

“…In spite of intensive SMBG use and recently reinforced training on adaptation of insulin delivery, no significant reduction of hypoglycaemic values was obtained during the study period without CGM. Being informed of the potential risk of hypoglycaemia via the CGM system most likely helped these patients to anticipate the need for countermeasures to avoid the occurrence of hypoglycaemia [5]. The concomitant reduction in HbA 1c levels may also indicate the patients' greater selfconfidence in adapting insulin doses to reduce hyperglycaemia safely because of the CGM information.…”

“…A specific training period, lasting about 2h, for CGM self-management was allocated for each patient before the period of CGM use. Blood glucose alert thresholds were initially set for all study patients at 80 mg/dL for hypoglycaemia and 240 mg/dL for hyperglycaemia, taking into account an estimated delay between actual and displayed blood glucose values [5]. However, these settings could be readjusted, if necessary, by the patient's physician on day 14 of the CGM period.…”

“…Continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion (CSII) can lead to lower HbA 1c levels than with multiple daily insulin injections in T1DM patients [2,3], with a significant reduction in severe hypoglycaemic episodes [4]. However, a subset of CSII-treated patients still experiences frequent hypoglycaemic events in everyday life [4,5].…”