Physiological reconstruction of blood glucose level using CGMS-signals only

Abstract

Patient with diabetes must regularly monitor blood glucose level. Drawing a blood sample is a painful and discomfort experience. Alternatively, the patient measures interstitial fluid glucose level with a sensor installed in subcutaneous tissue. Then, a model of glucose dynamics calculates blood glucose level from the sensor-measured, i.e., interstitial fluid glucose level of subcutaneous tissue. Interstitial fluid glucose level can significantly differ from blood glucose level. The sensor is either factory-calibrated, or the patient calibrates the sensor periodically by drawing blood samples, when glucose levels of both compartments are steady. In both cases, the sensor lifetime is limited up to 14 days. This is the present state of the art. With a physiological model, we would like to prolong the sensor lifetime with an adaptive approach, while requiring no additional blood sample. Prolonging sensor’s lifetime, while reducing the associated discomfort, would considerably improve patient’s quality of life. We demonstrate that it is possible to determine personalized model parameters from multiple CGMS-signals only, using an animal experiment with a hyperglycemic clamp. The experimenter injected separate glucose and insulin boluses to trigger rapid changes, on which we evaluated the ability to react to non-steady glucose levels in different compartments. With the proposed model, 70%, 80% and 95% of the calculated blood glucose levels had relative error less than or equal to 21.9%, 32.5% and 43.6% respectively. Without the model, accuracy of the sensor-estimated blood glucose level decreased to 39.4%, 49.9% and 99.0% relative errors. This confirms feasibility of the proposed method.