Evaluation of Clinical Accuracy of Portable Glucometers in Sheep at the Beginning of the Breeding Season

Abstract

Measurements of blood glucose concentrations are frequently used to diagnose and monitor diseases in sheep. Portable blood glucometers are widely used in human medicine because of their practicality. However, there are not enough studies on the accuracy of these devices in sheep. In this study, it was aimed to determine the changes in the measurement values of two different portable blood glucometers and biochemistry autoanalyzer devices. The study was carried out on a total of 47 Kangal sheep, 17-18 months old, healthy and sick. According to the clinical examination, 35 healthy sheep (Group 1) and 12 patients whose hematocrit and total protein values were higher than the reference values were included in the study (Group 2). Glucose concentrations measured with portable glucometers were compared with the result obtained using the biochemistry autoanalyzer device. The agreement between the measured values was evaluated by Pearson correlation analysis and Bland-Altman plots. In addition, Tukey's test was performed to evaluate glucose measurement between groups. In the study found that there were -3.63% and 6.83% differences in the blood glucose measurement readings between the Optium Xceed (OX), On Call Pluss (CP), and biochemistry autoanalyzer devices in Group 1. These figures were found to be 6.08% and 9.66% in Group 2. The variety of measurement differences between the biochemistry autoanalyzer and glucometers should therefore be known in the clinical evaluation of blood glucose levels.