Aims: Current continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) devices provide features that alert individuals with diabetes about their current and impending adverse glycaemic events. The use of these features has been associated with glycaemic improvements. However, how these features are utilised under real-world conditions has not been well studied. We queried a large database to quantify utilisation of the Dexcom G6 system features and how utilisation impacted glycaemic outcomes within a cohort of European users.
Methods: This 6-month retrospective, observational, large database analysis utilised anonymised data from a sample of 47,784 Europe-based G6 users. Primary outcome measures were associations between utilisation and customisation of High/Low threshold alerts, 'urgent low soon' (ULS) alert, and established CGM metrics.
Results: Users in the Germany, Austria, Switzerland region (n = 20,257), the Nordic countries (n = 10,314), United Kingdom (n = 9006), Italy (n = 4747), France (n = 2130) and Spain (1330) were included. All alert features were utilised by >75% of the cohort across all regions/countries and age groups. Enabling the Low alert and ULS alert was associated with lower percentage of time below range compared to disabling the Low alert (p < 0.001). Enabling the High alert was associated with higher percentage of time in range (%TIR) and lower percentage of time above range (%TAR) %TAR compared to disabling the High alert (p < 0.001). Paediatric patients and older adults tended to set a higher threshold for High/Low alerts, while younger adults tended to use lower threshold values for High/Low alerts.
Conclusions: Individuals who utilised the Dexcom G6 features showed better glycaemic control, particularly among those who utilised more sensitive High alert and Low alert settings, than users who did not utilise the system features.
Keywords: %TAR; %TBR; %TIR; alerts; continuous glucose monitoring; rtCGM; safety.
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