Relationship between blood glucose variability in ambulatory glucose profile and standardized continuous glucose monitoring metrics: Subanalysis of a prospective cohort study.

Background Continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) is becoming the standard device for managing glucose levels in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), and ambulatory glucose profile (AGP) is recommended for use. However, the relationship between AGP indexes and standardized CGM metrics has not been clarified in large-scale studies. Methods This is an exploratory cross-sectional analysis of baseline data collected from a prospective, multicenter 5-year follow-up observational study conducted and published previously by our group. The study participants were 999 outpatients with T2DM who used CGM at baseline, and had no apparent history of cardiovascular disease. We investigated the relationship between average inter-quartile range (IQR) and time in range (TIR). Results In both the TIR >70% and TIR >90% achievement groups, the average IQR was notably small compared to the non-achievement groups. Particularly in comparison of the TIR quartiles, the average IQR became significantly smaller as the TIR became larger. The average IQR correlated negatively with TIR, and the cutoff values for TIR >70% achievement and TIR >90% achievement were average IQR (70/90) 2.13/1.85 mmol/L. Conclusions Our results showed a negative correlation between TIR and the range of blood glucose variations visually represented in AGP. We also estimated for the first time the cutoff values to achieve the TIR target values. The results also showed that the range of blood glucose variations in AGP is associated with indices of intraday and interday blood glucose variations and also with hypoglycemia. Our results may provide new perspectives in the assessment and application of AGP in the clinical setting. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.