The MiniMed 670G calculates how much insulin to infuse using a sensor that takes blood sugar readings every five minutes; it even shuts off insulin delivery when blood sugar levels fall. The system adapts to blood sugar changes during exercise and illness, and compensates for miscalculations of mealtime, or bolus, infusions, says Francine Kaufman, Medtronic's chief medical officer “Whatever's going on, this device can automate the delivery of basal insulin,” she says. Medtronic's results show that the MiniMed 670G kept people with type I diabetes within their target blood sugar range 72% of the time compared with 67% without the system. Overall glucose control improved, as shown by a drop in HbA1c levels, from 7.4% at baseline to 6.9% at the end of the study.
But despite headlines proclaiming MiniMed 670G as 'the first artificial pancreas', the system still requires patients to calculate mealtime infusions and inject the insulin boluses themselves. It also has no means of boosting blood sugar levels. Even so, the MiniMed 670G's ability to adjust basal insulin continuously is an advance over the previous automated insulin pump. This feature “is obviously what many patients and providers have wanted,” says Yogish Kudva, a professor of internal medicine and endocrinology at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota.
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