As I’m sure many of you saw, the Medtronic 670G hybrid closed-loop system received FDA approval last week, which is a huge accomplishment for artificial pancreas technologies. The 670G system connects a CGM and an insulin pump, and doses insulin based on changes in the blood glucose, as sensed by the CGM.
Personally, I’m super excited for the 670G and can’t wait to see what this breakthrough leads to with other AP technologies. What do you guys think?
More info about the FDA approval of the Medtronic 670G is available here: Make a Donation - JDRF.
How will the CGM be placed. If it’s interstitial tissue then how will it be accurate? Mine is always off by 20 points (higher or lower)? I’ve been a T1D for 43 years, never been in DNA, never been hospitalized for diabetes, had PVD, had two pregnancies and have been in excellent health since I was a baby. How do I get involved with theses trials?
I’ve been a type 1 diabetic since December of 1978. After a suffering a severe cerebral hemorrhage in April of 2013, I found that I had lost the ability to feel my lows. I would be walking and talking normally, find that I was rapidly loosing my vision, and a few minutes after eating several glucose tablets my blood sugars would only be up to the high 20’s or low 30’s! As a result I was able to obtain a MMT-751 system - a predecessor of the 670G. With this system my wife and I are able to sleep knowing that it will alarm if I go low during the night. It uses an interstitial CGM which is not very accurate, however it very reliably in it’s alerts us to my lows when they occur. It may show my BG to be in the high 40’s when it is really in the 60’s or 70’s, but I have never gone below 46 mg/dl when using it. It performs very well for preventing hard lows, which is my reason for wearing it. There have been three or four hard lows below 30 that have occurred during the 2 hour warm-up time when changing the sensor - every 6 days or a little more often - or after a sensor has timed out and needs to be changed. The sensor does very often show errors between 40-100% from BG in my target range of 90-130, so if I had a 670G I think I would still want to test my blood to verify the CGM reading before any bolus.
Trials are over. In production now, ready by Spring. The means of measuring Glucose level was not discussed. BTW, the Dexcom sensor is way more accurate than the Medtronic has been. I was on the Med and recently switch to Dex due to all the rave reviews of it by T1Ds on these discussion sites. Look up artificial Pancreas.
some have asked how the new CGM system will be more accurate? Actually, it is in the predictive-corrective software. The more accurate that is, the better the CGM predicts where your Glucose levels are heading, and the insulin basal rate or bolus rate will adjust to the predictive signal received by the pump. That is what was so hard about the development of the artificial pancreas (also called closed-loop controlled pumps.
We will still need to input how much food we will be taking. Seems to me, if it was really smart, it would seek input on carbs, protein and fat, since they all hit at different times after eating. But only the carbs hit so rapidly. The others would be predicted by the software, so maybe proteins and fats aren’t necessary to know.
Dexcom must already have some of this software, because it is a really accurate CGM, and it has enabled me to reduce my A1C from when I relied on the really inaccurate Medtronic CGM (which is not the CGM they will use for the Artificial Pancreas–they will have a new one out).
Already heard from Medtronic 670g trial users on discussion sites that the 670g Enlite 3 sensor/receiver system is not all that much an improvement over the earlier Enlite sensors; for example, will read 85 or 95 when actual is <50. Still doesn’t hold a candle to the Dexcom 5 sensor/receiver, which I switched to last Summer from the Enlite. That will be the one to beat. I am waiting for the approval of the Tandem/Dexcom team trials for their AP.
Also, the 670g setpoint glucose level is 120 instead of 100 like the normal human controls to. Is it because Medtronic isn’t able to do that without having hazardous lows? This is another sign the 670g is not up to snuff, at least to my expectations. If you want it to control down to 100, you have to do a workaround, for Medtronic won’t give you a way to do it legitimately.
I’ve been on a pump for 15 years, the Medtronics for 10. I miss the old Animus, for I never had air bubbles get in their reservoirs. That is a big problem with the Medtronic. One large bubble can supplant 5 units of insulin.
@sandiebubbles…That’s impressive you’ve had no prior dm related hospital admissions even for dka. I’ve been t1 x45 years so it seems like we were both diagnosed in what I call the “dark ages.” As a child I can’t even remember how many times I was admitted for dka and control issues. Even now I still have control problems because of hormonal changes and stress. Good 4 you that you’ve been able to maintain such tight control👍
I was diagnosed almost 60 years ago…talk about dark ages. They gave me about 45 more years to live (I had just turned 6) if I took really good care of myself and never eat sweets, etc. Stuck myself with 24 gauge reusable steel needles (realy thick by today’s standards and I was a skinny kid, as many child diabetics are.) Absolutely no way to measure glucose at home; they gave us urine sticks that were off by hours.
