Continuous glucose monitoring: key challenges to replacing episodic SMBG

Lag between blood and interstitial fluid (ISF) glucose levels can contribute significantly to accuracy errors in current and anticipated continuous glucose monitoring systems. Mitigating this physiological lag can be an important and useful means for improving the accuracy, and hence the clinical utility of continuous glucose monitors. In a test of 22 subjects with diabetes, two ISF samples (control and mitigated) and a finger capillary blood glucose sample were taken and compared. The methodology presented here of using a pressure modulation technique to create an elevation in blood flow holds promise for significantly mitigating one of the most significant components of accuracy error for continuous monitoring systems.