Hovorka's Artificial Pancreas Results
Lancet is publishing a paper on Hovorka's AP work. This work is funded by JDRF (and several European diabetes charities), but is not part of the recently announced collaboration with Animas.
The basic trial was to take 17 kids and teenagers, and have each use a closed loop system while they slept in a hospital (with a nurse double checking that all was well). One interesting wrinkle was that some of the patients exercised just before going to bed, others ate a large meal, while others did neither. The idea was to test some situations which would push the AP into tougher situations. Testing at night and in a hospital is definitely targeting the easiest time of day in the easiest environment. Commercially available pumps and CGMs were used (Smiths Medical, Abbott Diabetes Care, and Medtronic).
I thought the results were good for a phase-II type trial. Patients using regular pumps were in range 40% of the time during the night. But when they used the AP, they were in range 60% of the time. Even better, the regular pumpers went very low nine times, but the APers never did. So if you want an AP to prevent "dead in bed" situations, then the results were particularly good.
News articles: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8498993.stm http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=9752115 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/business/05diabetes.html
Abstract: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2809%2961998-X/fulltext
Trial Record: http://controlled-trials.com/ISRCTN18155883
Joshua Levy
All the views expressed here are those of Joshua Levy, and nothing here is official JDRF news, views, policies or opinions.
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