Continuous Monitoring Improves Glucose Control in Critical Care Patients

A novel minimally invasive continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) system has been specifically designed for use in hospital critical care units (CCUs).

The Sentrino CGM System continuously displays the patient’s interstitial glucose value in real time, providing predictive alarms and alerts if the values fall outside the target range selected by the physician. The proactive management enables clinicians to change over to an event-based protocol from a time-based measurement protocol, which is the current standard of care with blood glucose measurements taken every two-to-four hours. By providing real-time trend data that serves as an early warning system, the Sentrino CGM System allows clinicians to appropriately intervene to prevent glycemic excursions and maximize the patient’s time in the target range.


In addition, the system integrates simply into the clinical workflow in the hospital to improve the quality and efficiency of maintaining glucose control, based on redundant sensing technology that optimizes signal reliability for more accurate visibility of glycemic variability; a minimally invasive, subcutaneous sensor customized for the critical care patient and inserts quickly and easily with low complication rates; and a novel drug interference rejection technology that ensures minimal interference with the wide array of pharmaceuticals used in the CCU. The Sentrino CGM System is a product of Medtronic (Minneapolis, MN, USA), and has received the European Community CE marking of approval.

“Despite its many benefits, good glycemic control is difficult to achieve in the CCU, and that’s why we developed Sentrino,” said Greg Meehan, vice president and general manager of the Continuous Glucose Monitoring business at Medtronic. “Medtronic has a decade of CGM expertise, and we coupled it with extensive clinical research to develop the Sentrino CGM System for critically ill patients.”

“Introduction of the CGM technology in critically ill patients is a high priority that will help improve our insight in insulin resistance, will increase understanding of the effects of glycemic variability, and will facilitate any blood glucose control strategy,” said Prof. M.J. Schultz, MD, PhD, of Academisch Medisch Centrum (AMC; Amsterdam, The Netherlands). “Using the Sentrino CGM System for my intensive care patients will alert me to impending hypo or hyperglycemia, and will be invaluable in better maintaining glucose control.”

Hospital-based CGM provides a more complete picture of high and low glucose levels that periodic blood glucose testing might miss, and has therefore become a standard practice in CCUs, even in patients that do not have diabetes, because it improves outcomes. The information provided by CGM is intended to supplement, not replace, readings obtained from approved blood glucose measuring devices, and should be confirmed prior to making therapy adjustments.

Related Links:
Medtronic
Academisch Medisch Centrum