Forearm blood glucose testing in diabetes mellitus

Abstract

Aims: To compare the accuracy and acceptability of capillary blood glucose testing from the forearm with finger prick testing in diabetic children.

Methods: Blood glucose measurements from samples taken from the forearm and the finger were compared in an outpatient setting from 52 children and adolescents with diabetes mellitus aged 6-17 years. Opinions on forearm sampling were collected by questionnaire.

Results: Blood glucose results obtained from forearm sampling correlated well with results from the finger measured by the Yellow Springs Instrument analyser. Error grid analysis showed that 100% of measurements were clinically acceptable; 61% of children reported that forearm testing was painless and 19% that it was less painful than finger prick testing.

Conclusion: Forearm testing is an acceptable alternative to finger prick testing for blood glucose measurement in children and adolescents.

Figure 1

Comparison of SoftSense finger prick blood glucose measurements with the reference method (finger prick sampling) (n = 90) using the Clarke error grid.³

Figure 3

Comparison of forearm blood glucose measurements with the reference method (finger prick sampling) (n = 92) using the Clarke error grid.³

Figure 2

Bland-Altman analysis of SoftSense finger prick blood glucose measurements with reference method (n = 90) with lines representing the mean difference and ±2 SDs.

Figure 4

Bland-Altman analysis of SoftSense forearm blood glucose measurements with reference method (n = 92) with lines representing the mean difference and ±2 SDs.

Figure 5

The answers given by children and adolescents or their parents when asked "where or when do you think you would use the SoftSense system?".