Handheld glucometer

Re: Handheld glucometer

Ian Mostyn — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 23:37:24 GMT

[quote user="Laurence Webb"]

As cat/dog rbc are much smaller they slip through the filter so the reading is being made on whole blood instead of serum. As the machine then recalculates the serum reading into an expected reading for human whole blood this gives an incorrect figure.

[/quote]

I did a trial with our human glucometer and found I got a figure 2mmol higher when I used serum or plasma compared to whole blood. I suppose if you are doing a glucose curve, as long as the readings are consistent, you should get the same curve but it would be interesting to compare serum patient side with our standard external lab. A job for next week perhaps

Re: Handheld glucometer

macvet — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 21:49:27 GMT

Hi, have also compared alphatrak vs vettest vs human glucometer. For the most part Alphatrak correlated well vs vettest but did go thro a spell where it was also v unreliable - even when 2 ear tip samples were measured from the same dog minutes apart - I'm talking 10 mmol of a difference so beware. May of course been individual machine problem but would be interested to hear if anyone else has had similar issues. Angus Macpherson

Re: Handheld glucometer

Rob Foale — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 00:56:21 GMT

Hello Christopher,

I've started to use an Alphatrak and have been comparing samples with our wet chemistry analyser and also our older handheld units in all my recent curves. The Alphatrak has been very close/not significantly different to the main chemistry analyser (QC done daily by lab tech etc) whilst the hand held are often reading up to 2mol/l different , so I have been impressed and will now use them in preference to other makes.

Hope this is useful,

Rob Foale

Re: Handheld glucometer

Laurence Webb — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 10:24:55 GMT

We've got an AlphaTrax, but not had occasion to use it much so far.

I was at a talk on diabetes by Danielle Gunn-Moore recently and she discussed glucometers (it was asponsored by Abbott after all!). The argument she put forward for their use over human ones is that the test strips on human glucometers are designed to filter out rbc from the serum and the reading is made on the serum alone.

In cats you have the additional problem of roleaux formation. This will stop red cells going through the filter to a degree. As the amount of roleaux formation varies hugely from cat to cat and from day to day, depending on disease state etc, you can not determine what proportion of glucose in the rbc is being measured at any one time.

Re: Handheld glucometer

beldather — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:18:06 GMT

We have been using the alphatrax for about 6 months, and do like them. The seem to be slightly more consistent then our previous ones. My only gripe is over I think 23mmol/l they just read HI without giving a value. Really annoying if trying to curve or read an uncontrolled animal sometimes.

Regards

Blair