Medtronic Inc.'s device enabling diabetics to continuously monitor their blood-sugar levels was almost three times as effective as standard therapy at controlling their glucose in a study. Children also benefited.
Researchers followed 485 people with Type 1 diabetes for a year in the largest study to date and found that the Medtronic system achieved recommended blood-glucose levels in 28 percent of adults compared with 10 percent using conventional methods, according to research presented Tuesday at an American Diabetes Association meeting in Orlando, Fla.
The study, also published in the New England Journal of Medicine, compared patients on the Medtronic device with those who used standard finger-stick monitors and multiple daily injections of insulin to manage their blood sugar.
The Medtronic system is only partway to the goal of an "artificial pancreas" that doctors and patients envision: a computer-controlled device to monitor glucose continuously and release insulin without any patient effort. Still, the results of Tuesday's industry-funded study may help drive sales gains of diabetes devices for Fridley-based Medtronic, said Michael Weinstein, a New York-based analyst with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.
"If you can keep blood sugar in the kind of ranges we achieved in this study, you are going to reduce to a significant degree the blindness, kidney and heart disease, and other complications in these patients five, 10 or 20 years later," said Richard Bergenstal, who is a diabetes researcher at Park Nicollet Health Services in St. Louis Park and the study's lead author.
Nearly 24 million Americans have been diagnosed with diabetes; as many as 10 percent of those have the form known as Type 1, where the body doesn't produce the insulin needed to regulate blood sugar. The disease contributed to nearly 234,000 deaths in 2005, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Early, semi-automated versions of a computer-driven artificial pancreas may reach the market in four years, said Aaron Kowalski, an assistant vice president with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International, a New York-based advocacy group. Getting a fully automated artificial organ to market may take a decade, he said.
Medtronic is "the clear leader" in the competition to develop an automated system for insulin delivery, Weinstein said. In September, Medtronic began marketing in Europe its most advanced diabetes device, called Paradigm Veo. The device can automatically halt insulin delivery from a pump when sensors detect that a patient's blood sugar has fallen below safe levels.
