Again with blood glucose meters: Supplementary information

We recently echoed in this blog a warning from the Spanish Agency of Drugs and Health Care Products (AEMPS), referring to problems of interference in glucose meters.

Abbott Laboratories have corrected their test strips FreeStyle Lite, for not to interfere with certain medications at the time of measuring blood glucose in diabetic patients.

They have therefore changed the reactive enzyme, replacing PQQ-glucose-dehydrogensasa by glucose dehydrogenase-FAD, which is specific for the detection of glucose in blood.

To identify these new strips they have changed aspects of packaging and labeling, making it necessary to pay attention to these changes.

The Spanish Agency for Drugs and Health Care Products (AEMPS) has issued a supplementary information to the security note on possible errors in measurements of glucose in diabetic patients due to interference with certain treatments, which provides detailed information on laboratory changes.


See also in this blog:

Again with blood glucose meters

Beware with blood glucose meters


Posted by Juan José Jurado
English version of this post Jesús Moreno

Again with blood glucose meters

To complete the warning published in the previous post on blood glucose meters, we have posted in sanoysalvo files a review made in the Area 6 of Madrid, which details issues such as reliability, calibration, interferences and frequent errors, that must be read by those who perform this type of techniques.

Click here to download the document.


Posted by Juan José Jurado and Fernando Palacio
English version by Jesús Moreno

Beware with blood glucose meters

The Spanish Agency for Drugs and Health Care Products has issued a safety note on June 18 warning on the risk of possible errors in measurements of glucose obtained with some blood glucose meters using the enzyme as a reagent pyrroloquinoline quinone glucose dehydrogenase (GDH-PQQ ), interfering in these results some medications.

Meters that use this enzyme are Accu-Chek Sensor®, Accu-Chek Compact Plus®, Accu-Chek Compact®, Accu-Chek Aviva®, Accu-Chek Aviva Nano® , Accu-Chek Voicemate®, FreeStyle Lite® and Freestyle Freedom Lite®.

Drugs wich may interfere are Extraneal® , Orencia®, Octagamocta® and Adept® 4%.

This same warning has been published by the FDA in August 2009 (FDA Public Health Notification: Potentially Fatal Errors with GDH-PQQ * Glucose Monitoring Technology).

Both notes report that the use of these meters in patients undergoing treatment with outlined in the table medications, can produce abnormally high results detecting substances other than glucose that are generated from the administration of these drugs.

Worth noting that these drugs are not used routinely in primary care settings because the conditions for which are shown are monitoring, most of them specialized care. These patients are those undergoing peritoneal dialysis (Extraneal), patients with certain immune deficiencies situations or undergoing bone marrow transplantation (Octagamocta), patients with rheumatoid arthritis (Orencia), or patients undergoing abdominal surgery (Adept).

It is important therefore not to use these blood glucose meters in these patients.

With respect to the use of blood glucose meters, we also note that a valid result can come conditioned by other aspects of this process:

• Assessing the need for prior calibration of the meter.
• Improper storage of test strips.
• Ambient temperature.
• Insufficient blood volume.

Also, each meter has different methodologies for testing. Therefore, it is not advisable to make comparisons of results between different commercial laboratories.


Posted by Juan José Jurado
English version by Jesús Moreno

Welcome to the English version of Sano y Salvo

Sano y Salvo is currently the only website focused on patient safety in primary care. We receive visits from all over the world, which has made us consider the publication of our contents in English.

So we have created the blog safeanhealthypatient.org, in which we will publish the translation of sanoysalvo.es posts.

Publication at this site of the spanish originals will not be exhaustive or synchronous. We will publish the translation of new posts and, as we can, some of the older posts.

Sano y Salvo is currently a collection of the most relevant items published about patient safety in primary care, both at the national (Spain) and international level. Our web searcher engine and the links on the right column allow anyone to find relevant contents and interesting experiences to improve patient safety in primary care.

Now we also consider making these material worldwide available, in English.


Posted by Jesus Palacio, editor of sanoysalvo.es and Erika Céspedes, manager of the English version published in safeandhealthypatient.org