Continuous Glucose Monitoring in Diabetic Dogs and Cats

Presentation Description / Summary: Continuous glucose monitors (CGM) measure interstitial glucose (IG) concentration every 1-5 minutes for 14 days or more, depending on the type of CGM. These devices are quickly evolving, representing a new frontier in diabetes management.

Historically, diabetes management has depended primarily on serial blood glucose (BG) measurements and/or glycated proteins concentrations. Although these methods facilitate the establishment of glycemic control, they have significant limitations. These tools provide only snapshot perspectives on a patient's dynamic glycemic status, which may result in delays and errors in decision-making and incomplete information. Additionally, they reflect inadequate glycemic control without offering clear guidance for therapy adjustments.

In contrast, because IG and BG are highly correlated, the real-time, continuous, and long-term data generated by contemporary CGMs enables real-time decision-making within the home environment, reduces monitoring costs and the time required to achieve glycemic control. The rich and comprehensive data provided by CGM tells stories on glycemia that could not be told before, which leads to fine-tuning of therapy in novel ways, from managing glucose variability, day-night differences and post-prandial excursions, to AI-assisted closed-loop systems for optimized glycemic control. While enhancing the quality of life of most patients and their caregivers, for some, the abundance of data leads to unnecessary stress. This should be managed by educating in-advance about goals of therapy and IG-targets or by avoiding the use of CGM in some patients. For some patients, low tolerance for wearing the sensor is a limitation, however, this can be improved with optimizing location and adherence techniques.