Self blood glucose monitoring: evaluation of Haemo-Glukotest 20-800R, Visidex I and Reflolux.

Trained staff-members evaluated the accuracy of Haemo-Glukotest 20-800R (= HG 20-800R), Visidex I and Reflolux in 135 blood glucose measurements. A glucose-oxidase method was used as reference method. Although the correlation between the 3 methods tested was excellent, more detailed analysis revealed for all methods a clear deviation from the real blood glucose, especially in the low blood glucose range. This might result in an inappropriate adaptation of the insulin dose, when the estimated blood glucose is used in connection with a classic algorithm. Apart from this limitation, Reflolux had the best accuracy, followed by HG 20-800R. If stored in a desiccated tube, the HG 20-800R strip can be reliably re-read (visually or with Reflolux) even after 7 days. Visidex I is unsuitable for storage and re-reading.