Continuously keeping one’s glucose levels within normal range is a big part of life for diabetics the world over. Some rely on continuous glucose monitors and insulin pumps to control their blood sugar, but these devices operate autonomously with the glucometer not sharing its readings with the pump and the pump not telling the meter how much insulin it’s delivering.
Researchers at University of Virginia have developed a system that uses an Android smartphone to link the two devices into a unified machine that continuously monitors glucose and adjusts insulin delivery as needed. The closed-loop system uses Dexcom monitors and Insulet OmniPod pumps and originally relied on a specially developed wireless protocol for communications. This has been passed over for the new Bluetooth low power standard that allows much greater range between the medical devices and the smartphone. Using the new system the researchers performed a clinical trial to study how practical and effective it would be in real life, and after having 20 subjects with type 1 diabetes live with the new system for 42 hour sessions, the system performed with an impressive 97.7% uptime, paving the way for larger trials.
Study in Diabetes Care: Feasibility of Outpatient Fully Integrated Closed-Loop Control – First studies of wearable artificial pancreas
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