Assessment of visidex II: A new blood glucose monitoring system

Blood glucose monitoring in the home has an important role to play in the management of many diabetic patients.A variety of strip testing systems and home monitoring instruments for blood glucose estimation are available (Ref I).Recent reports (Refs 2,3,4,5,6) have examined and compared the accuracy of two strip test kits: Visidex 1 (Ames Division of Miles Laboratories); and BM 20-800 (Boehringer Mannheim).In these publications, Visidex 1 was as useful as other methods for the estimation of whole blood glucose, but some criticisms were made regarding its ease of use.We have examined a modification of the Visidex system, Visidex 11.This strip incorporates a smaller pad size, with a larger number of colour blocks in the normal and borderline range for blood glucose, and the water wash required to remove blood from the strip is replaced by blotting with an absorbent tissue.Results from Visidex I1 were compared with results from the BM 20-800 strips and with results from a membrane meter automatic glucose analyser, Yellow Springs Analyser (YSI), model 23AM.