People with diabetes can now choose to be alerted when they enter hypoglycaemia or hyperglycaemia via the FreeStyle Libre 2 system. The Bluetooth-enabled technology offers customisable alarms for high and low blood glucose levels and vibrates or makes a sound to inform the user. It has a built-in feature that notifies the user of signal loss. This is triggered when there has been no communication between the sensor and reader for 20 minutes.
The user can scan their sensor to find out their current blood glucose level or see trends and patterns as often as they like. The optional alarms enable patients to make decisions about medication and diet.
The FreeStyle Libre 2 will be rolled out across Europe over the next couple of months, starting in Germany, and costs the same as the original system. It has almost identical 14-day-wear sensor accuracy as the FreeStyle Libre but an improved mean average relative difference, suggesting large variations between the readings and true values have been reduced.
Amid accumulating evidence of benefits with new diabetes drugs, Vinod Patel asks whether the costs can be justified.
9 Nov 2023