Glycemic changes upon adoption of CGM for German T2 diabetes patients not using intensive insulin

Background and aims Our aim was to assess changes in glycaemic metrics during early sensor use for German T2 diabetes patients with and without insulin therapy.

Methods An optional survey was conducted for FreeStyle LibreTM system users from June2020 – Oct2020. Responses were linked to data available from Sept2014 – Oct2020. Two groups were analyzed: T2 on basal or pre-mixed insulin (T2bi) and T2 on non-insulin-based therapies (T2ni). Glycemic metrics were calculated daily for sensor 1 and by sensor for sensors 1-4.

Results Survey responses from 283 users were linked to their reader uploads (180 T2bi, 103 T2ni).

T2bi overall showed higher glucose SD and time in hyperglycemia, and lower TIR, than T2ni. However, both had high mean TIR on day 1, 68.1% for T2bi and 78.5% for T2ni. By day 14, mean TIR increased further to 72.4% (p=0.01) for T2bi and remained high for T2ni. Both groups also decreased mean glucose SD (41.7 to 36.3mg/dL, p < 0.001 for T2bi and 33.2 to 30.4mg/dL, p=0.01 for T2ni) and time in hyperglycemia above 180mg/dL (30.2% to 25.9%, p=0.01 for T2bi and 19.4% to 14.8%, p=0.02 for T2ni) within the same period. Improvements during sensor 1 were sustained for the following 6 weeks.

Conclusions Results showed both groups experiencing immediate improvement in glycemic markers despite having starting TIR above or near the target set by the International Consensus on TIR, demonstrating the benefit of CGM adoption even to those with well-controlled glucose.

Publication History

Article published online:
06 May 2021