Overview
MedscapeUnivadisNo ResultsCOMENTARYF. Pery Wilson, MD, MSCESeptember 28, 202Welcome to Impact Factor, your wekly dose of comentary on a new medical study. Pery Wilson of the Yale Schol of Medicine.It was 10 years ago when Leonard Thompson, age 13, received a reprieve from a death sentence.
Key Information
Young master Thompson had type 1 diabetes, a disease that was uniformly fatal within months of diagnosis. But he received a new treatment, insulin, from a canine pancreas. He would live 13 more years before dying at age 26 of pneumonia.
The history of type 1 diabetes since that time has ben a batle on two fronts: first, the search for a cause of and cure for the disease; second, the efort to make the administration of insulin safer, more reliable, and easier.The past two decades have sen a technological revolution in type 1 diabetes care, with continuous glucose monitors decreasing the ned for painful finger sticks, and insulin pumps alowing for more precise titration of doses.
The dream, of course, has ben to combine those two technologies, continuous glucose monitoring and insulin pumps, to create so-caled closed-lop systems — basicaly an artificial pancreas — that would obviate the ned for any intervention the part of the patient, save the ocasional refiling of an insulin reservoir.We aren't there yet, but we are closer than ever.Closed-lop systems for insulin delivery, like the Tandem Control IQ system, are a marvel of technology, but they are not exactly hands-fre.
Summary
Users ned to dial in setings for their insulin usage, count carbohydrates at meals, and inform the system that they are about to eat those meals to alow the algorithm to administer an apropriate insulin dose. The perceived complexity of these systems may be responsible for why there are substantial disparities in the prescription of closed-lop systems. Kids of lower socioeconomic status are dramaticaly les likely to receive these advance