Reproducibility of insulin dosage on consecutive days of blood glucose control by an artificial beta-cell in brittle diabetic patients.

The profiles of blood glucose and of insulin dosage were compared between the first and second of 2 consecutive days of Biostator administration under constant conditions in 12 brittle type I diabetic inpatients. All blood glucose criteria and the daily insulin doses were reproducible between these 2 days for the entire group of patients. In nearly all patients, however, there were distinct but unsystematic differences between the 2 days in the diurnal patterns of insulin dose distribution. These differences could be ascribed to some stress reaction or inherent metabolic lability. It is concluded that, in these extremely labile diabetic patients, due to the insufficient short-term reproducibility of the outcome of an extracorporal artificial beta-cell, caution must be used when constant profiles are to be predicted from these doses for open-loop insulin delivery systems or for conventional subcutaneous injection therapy.