Monitoring blood glucose levels is critical for diabetic individuals who typically use point-of-care health assessment devices to obtain an accurate glucose measurement. Despite the relatively high selectivity of glucometers, certain biological compounds including some drugs and sugars have been known to interfere with the glucose signal. We sought to ascertain if significant interference on the response accuracy of a commercial glucometer is caused by certain sugar and drug compounds: xylose, galactose, lactose, ascorbic acid, acetaminophen, and ibuprofen. We measured the response of each potential interferent at typical physiological concentrations in hypo-, normal- and hyperglycemic solutions (3-mM, 8-mM, and 16-mM) using three commercial glucometers. We determined the mean relative signal of each interferent with the signal from the glucose standards prepared in buffer normalized at 100%. We conducted t-tests to determine if there was a significant difference from the true value at the 95% confidence interval for each interferent solution. At the 95% confidence interval, the hypoglycemic interferent solutions showed that acetaminophen, ascorbic acid, xylose and galactose significantly increased the signal; whereas, ibuprofen and lactose suppressed the signal significantly. At the normal glycemic level, galactose and xylose interferent solutions increased the signal significantly and the ascorbic acid interferent solution suppressed the signal significantly. At the hyperglycemic level, xylose interferent solution increased the signal significantly and ibuprofen interferent solution suppressed the signal significantly. Overall, our results indicate that the signal of the glucometer can be significantly affected by sugars and drugs, particularly at the hypoglycemic level, which may lead to inaccurate blood glucose measurements.

Analysis of interferents’ effects on the response accuracy of a commercial glucometer

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

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