Comparison of glucose levels using glucometer and GOD-POD Method in diabetic patients

• Author Details:   
• Sherie Pankaj Sharma
• Ashish Prakash Anjankar
• Anita Kale

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Introduction: Glucometer is widely used at hospitals and homes as a first line tool to get an idea about the current blood glucose levels. Since glucometers are used for making important decisions, it is essential that their accuracy should be comparable to those of standard laboratory analyzers. So the present study was aimed to compare and correlate the glucose levels using glucometer and GOD-POD method in diabetic patients.
Methods: 60 diagnosed type 2 diabetes mellitus patients were selected for the study after institutional ethical committee’s clearance was obtained. These were divided into three groups based on their plasma glucose levels by GOD-POD method.
Group 1: 20 Patients having plasma glucose levels ? 110 mg/dl.
Group 2: 20 Patients having plasma glucose levels between 111 mg/dl to 250 mg/dl.
Group 3: 20 Patients having plasma glucose levels ? 251 mg/dl.
In this study, we measured plasma glucose levels of each patient simultaneously with glucometer and GOD-POD method (semi-automatic analyzer) in the clinical laboratory.
Results: In our study, we found that that at very high glucose readings (i.e. in group 3 patients having plasma glucose levels ? 251 mg/dl), glucometer overestimates glucose results. So, these values do not accurately reflect actual plasma glucose levels.
Conclusions: Very high glucose values obtained using glucometers should be cautiously interpreted and verified with centralized laboratory. The current practice of performing only single readings with glucometers can lead to misdiagnosis. Medical professionals should depict diabetic patients the importance of periodic centralized laboratory glucose testing.

Keywords: Diabetes, Glucose levels, Glucometer, GOD-POD method