WEDNESDAY, Nov. 23 (HealthDay News) -- For patients with type 2 diabetes not taking prandial insulin, 12 weeks of intermittent real-time continuous glucose monitoring (RT-CGM) significantly improves and sustains glycemic control compared with use of self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG), according to a study published online Nov. 18 in Diabetes Care.
Robert A. Vigersky, M.D., from the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., and colleagues examined whether short-term, RT-CGM had long-term beneficial effects on glycemic control in 100 patients with type 2 diabetes, who were not on prandial insulin. The effect of 12 weeks of intermittent RT-CGM on glycemic control was compared with SMBG over a 40-week follow-up period.
The investigators found that, at the end of the three-month active intervention, there was a significant difference in hemoglobin A1C, which was sustained during the follow-up period. The mean, unadjusted hemoglobin A1C decreased at weeks 12, 24, 38, and 52 by 1.0, 1.2, 0.8, and 0.8 percent, respectively, in the RT-CGM group, versus 0.5, 0.5, 0.5, and 0.2 percent, respectively, in the SMBG group. After adjusting for covariates, the RT-CGM group showed a significantly greater decline in hemoglobin A1C over the course of the study than the SMBG group. The improvement was highest for participants who used RT-CGM per protocol, and compared with those in the SMBG group, the improvement occurred without greater medication intensification.
"Intermittent RT-CGM over 12 weeks significantly improved glycemic control in a population of patients with type 2 diabetes not taking prandial insulin both during and for up to one year following the intervention," the authors write.
The study was funded by DexCom Corporation, which manufactures continuous glucose sensing technologies.
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