Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2016 Jun 28;10(4):967-70.
doi: 10.1177/1932296815624713. Print 2016 Jul.

Improving the Glucose Meter Error Grid With the Taguchi Loss Function

Jan S Krouwer  1
Affiliations
Review

Improving the Glucose Meter Error Grid With the Taguchi Loss Function

Jan S Krouwer. J Diabetes Sci Technol. .

Abstract

Glucose meters often have similar performance when compared by error grid analysis. This is one reason that other statistics such as mean absolute relative deviation (MARD) are used to further differentiate performance. The problem with MARD is that too much information is lost. But additional information is available within the A zone of an error grid by using the Taguchi loss function. Applying the Taguchi loss function gives each glucose meter difference from reference a value ranging from 0 (no error) to 1 (error reaches the A zone limit). Values are averaged over all data which provides an indication of risk of an incorrect medical decision. This allows one to differentiate glucose meter performance for the common case where meters have a high percentage of values in the A zone and no values beyond the B zone. Examples are provided using simulated data.

Keywords: MARD; Parkes error grid; Taguchi loss function; surveillance error grid.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Increasing glucose meter error increases the risk of an incorrect medical decision as one approaches the A zone limit.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Parkes error grid for a glucose meter with 0 bias and 4% CV.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Parkes error grid for a glucose meter with –8% bias and 8% CV.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Parkes error grid for a glucose meter with 0 bias and 9% CV.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Clarke WL, Cox D, Goder-Frederick LA, et al. Evaluating clinical accuracy of systems for self-monitoring of blood glucose. Diabetes Care. 1987;10(5):622-628. - PubMed
    1. Pfützner A, Klonoff DC, Pardo S, et al. Technical aspects of the Parkes error grid. J Diabetes Sci Technol. 2013;7:1275-1281. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Klonoff DC, Lias C, Vigersky R, et al. The surveillance error grid. J Diabetes Sci Technol. 2014;8:658-672. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Halldorsdottir S, Warchal-Windham ME, Wallace JF, et al. Accuracy evaluation of five blood glucose monitoring systems: the North American Comparator Trial. J Diabetes Sci Technol. 2013;7:1294-1302. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Obermaier K, Schmelzeisen-Redeker G, Schoemaker M, et al. Performance evaluations of continuous glucose monitoring systems: precision absolute relative deviation is part of the assessment. J Diabetes Sci Technol. 2013;7:824-832. - PMC - PubMed