Background: Globally millions of people with diabetes still prick their fingers to measure blood glucose. The aim of this study was to comprehensively evaluate and to compare three lancing devices set at the minimum ("1") and at the maximum ("5") lancing depth with respect to blood volume (BV) and pain related to lancing.
Methods: Lancing devices tested were A-Glucoject Dual PLUS, B-droplet (both: HTL-Strefa S.A., Poland), and C-Microlet Next (Ascensia Diabetes Care, Switzerland), all used with personal lancets of three sizes 28G, 30G, and 33G. BVs were measured with calibrated capillaries. Pain related to lancing was expressed as a derivative of pain rating with visual analog scale.
Results: In 90 participants with diabetes, 360 lancing procedures were performed. Overall, BV and pain were higher for "maximum" compared to "minimum" lancing depth (for both P < .001). Pain differed between devices (P ≤ .001), overall was higher for device A compared to B or C; in paired comparisons differences were significant for the following settings: A > B for 28G/1 and 33G/1, B > C for 30G/1, and A > C for 28G/1, 30G/1, and 33G/1. In aggregated comparison we did not prove a significant effect of lancet size on either BV nor pain (P = .1109, P = .4966, respectively).
Conclusions: BV depended mainly on lancing depth. Pain depended on lancing depth and to some degree on device type. The results may serve as a source of comparative data of lancing devices performance for studies in which other lancing devices and/or lancets would be tested.The study was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT03479619.
Keywords: SMBG; blood sampling; glucose monitoring; lancets; lancing device; pain.