Diabetologists' and patients' views on continuous glucose monitoring: do they talk about the same story?
As clinicians, we believe that patients with diabetes have the same views on continuous glucose monitoring that we have. For them, however, the focus is not optimization of metabolic control, but living a life that is as normal as possible. This difference can become an issue in clinical trials of systems for continuous glucose monitoring. If such systems demonstrate no benefit to metabolic control over standard spot capillary glucose monitoring, does this really reflect an insufficient efficacy of the continuous glucose monitoring system tested or is this the result of a "conflict of interest?" This commentary contemplates the mismatch in aims that might lead to such study results. From my point of view, it is critical to find a solution to this issue, as otherwise the benefits of continuous glucose monitoring (which I believe in quite strongly) cannot be shown in a manner that convinces health care payers to reimburse these new technologies on a broader scale.
Heinemann
Lutz
L
Profil Institute for Metabolic Research, Neuss, Germany. lutz.heinemann@profl-research.de