Medisense Optium Blood Glucose Monitoring System: A Review

A few years ago, glucometers began a competition for requiring smaller and smaller samples of blood to measure glucose levels. The advantages of this are obvious. Not only does a small sample require less of a wound to produce, it is also easier to obtain this sample from places other than the standard fingertip usually required by most measuring systems. The disadvantage of this trend may be somewhat less obvious. As any scientist knows, the smaller the sample obtained, the less accurate the conclusion that can be drawn. Unfortunately, blood glucose measuring systems appear to be no exception to that principle.

I have an intense personal, as well as some professional, interest in glucometers. In addition to being diabetic myself, I have a son-in-law and his daughter (my granddaughter) who are diabetic. My granddaughter is seven years old and a very fragile diabetic. Her insulin is carefully titrated (via a pump) against the measured glucose and this measurement had better be accurate. I have tested and calibrated many meters. I have found a frightening level of variability and inaccuracy in these devices. The manufacturers usually publish accuracy data. I have never found these data to be particularly accurate or in accord with my own measurements. Sometimes they are dismayingly inaccurate. The testing procedures that the manufacturers use to obtain the data that they publish are rigidly controlled in the manner that the sample is taken. This reduces the variability of the measurement, considerably, but it does not reflect the manner in which most people take their own measurements. It is far more important then most diabetics realize to use proper technique for obtaining the measurement. Unfortunately, this is not always enough.