Regurgitation of Blood into Insulin Cartridges in the Pen-like Injectors
- Kazuo Sonoki, MD,
- Mototaka Yoshinari, MD,
- Masanori Iwase, MD,
- Kenji Tashiro, MD,
- Kenzo Iino, MD,
- Masanori Wakisaka, MD and
- Masatoshi Fujishima, MD
- Second Department of Internal Medicine, Kyushu University Hospital, Kyushu, Japan
The pen-like injector for insulin is widely used by diabetic patients and improves their quality of life. However, an important disadvantage of this reusable injector is the possible contamination of biological materials (1). Macroscopic blood regurgitation into a cartridge is sometimes observed. In such a case, if the cartridges were to be used by another patient, this could result in the transmission of contagious diseases such as the hepatitis B virus. Therefore, we investigated the blood contamination in 146 cartridges used by diabetic patients by immunochromatography using anti-human hemoglobin antibody.
Hemoglobin was detected in 6 of 146 cartridges (4.1%). The quantity of the contaminated blood per …
