Background: Throughout the insulin pump therapy, decisions of prandial boluses programming are taken by patients individually a few times every day, and, moreover, this complex process requires numerical skills and knowledge in nutrition components estimation. The aim of the study was to determine the impact of the expert system, supporting the patient's decision on meal bolus programming, on the time in range of diurnal glucose excursion in patients treated with continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion (CSII).
Methods: The crossover, randomized study included 12 adults, aged 19 to 53, with type 1 diabetes mellitus, duration ranging from 7 to 30 years. Patients were educated in complex food counting, including carbohydrate units (CU) and fat-protein units (FPU). Subsequently, they were randomly allocated to the experimental group (A), which used the expert software named VoiceDiab, and the control group (B), using a manual method of meal-bolus estimation.
Results: It was found that 66.7% of patients within the A group statistically reported a relevant increase in the percentage (%) of sensor glucose (SG) in range (TIR 70-180 mg/dl), compared to the B group. TIR (median) reached 53.9% in the experimental group (A) versus 44% within the control group (B), P < .05. The average difference in the number of hypoglycemia episodes was not statistically significant (-0.2%, SD 11.6%, P = .93). The daily insulin requirement in both groups was comparable-the average difference in total daily insulin dose between two groups was 0.26 (SD 7.06 IU, P = .9).
Conclusion: The expert system in meal insulin dosing allows improvement in glucose control without increasing the rates of hypoglycemia or the insulin requirement.
Keywords: bolus calculator; insulin pumps; randomized control trial; type 1 diabetes.