Artificial pancreas improves insulin control in children with diabetes

Researchers from the University of Virginia (UVA) have developed an artificial pancreas capable of delivering automated insulin to pediatric patients with type 1 diabetes. The study, presented at the Endocrine Society's 99th annual meeting, reports the artificial pancreas is significantly more effective in diabetes management than current methods.

Conventional diabetes care in children with type 1 diabetes involves continuous glucose testing throughout the day and the injection of insulin. Researchers hope the artificial pancreas will act like a real pancreas and manage glucose levels without the additional intervention of test and injections.

"Up until now, parents and doctors have had to decide how much insulin to give young children throughout the day to avoid dangerously low or high blood sugars," said lead investigator, Mark DeBoer, MD, MSc, MCR, associate professor at UVA in Charlottesville. "Even with an insulin pump, it can be difficult to know how much insulin the child requires because of fluctuations in the carbohydrate content in food and the child's activity level."

The artificial pancreas involves incorporating an insulin pump and continuous glucose monitoring into a single device.

"With the exception of insulin dosing for food intake, the artificial pancreas makes all the dosing decisions," said DeBoer. "It can track the patient's blood sugar level and adjust the amount of insulin given to keep it in a target range."

The study tested the artificial pancreas for 68 hours on six boys and six girls between 5 and 8 years old with type 1 diabetes. Researchers tracked blood glucose levels and compared the blood sugar control to conventional home care. Results showed the artificial pancreas increased the amount of time the children spent in the target blood sugar range by 26 percent, spent 25.7 percent less time in the high blood sugar range. Also, the number of low blood sugar episodes fell be an average of 0.7.

"These results, although in a small number of children, show great promise because similar results have been found in large-scale studies of older individuals with type 1 diabetes," DeBoer said. "In the future, this type of technology is likely to become the standard of care for type 1 diabetes control for children in this age range."