Artificial Pancreas Reduced Nocturnal Hypoglycemia in Type 1 Diabetes
Patients aged 1 to 18 years with type 1 diabetes at a diabetes camp experienced less than half as many episodes of nocturnal hypoglycemia and were able to maintain tighter glucose control when using an artificial pancreas system than when they used a sensor-augmented insulin pump, according to a study reported on February 28 in The New England Journal of Medicine.
When using the insulin pump, patients reported 22 hypoglycemia events, defined as glucose less than 63 mg/dL, compared with only 7 events when using the artificial pancreas system. The mean overnight glucose level was also significantly lower with the artificial pancreas (126.4 mg/dL) compared with 140.4 mg/dL when using the insulin pump.
The 56 patients were randomly assigned to use either the artificial pancreas or the insulin pump during two overnight sleep sessions. The multinational crossover study was conducted in the camp setting as a test of the feasibility of implementing the artificial pancreas system outside the hospital.
The full study is available here.
