Oral Glucose Tolerance Test Evaluation With Forearm and Fingertip Glucose Measurements in Pregnant Women
- Charalampos Stavrianos, MD and
- Eleni Anastasiou, MD
- From the First Endocrine Section, Diabetes Center, Alexandra Hospital, Athens, Greece
- Address correspondence to Eleni Anastasiou, MD, Alexandra Hospital, First Endocrine Section, Diabetes Center, 80 V. Sofias Ave., Athens 11528, Greece. E-mail: mileleni{at}hol.gr
It is known that glucose levels in capillary blood in the fingertip after a liquid glucose load are constantly higher when compared with venous blood measurements (1). Recently alternative sites for capillary blood drawing (e.g., forearm) have been proposed (2) that are less painful compared with fingertip. Data have shown that there was no significant difference between the capillary blood drawn from forearm and fingertip in diabetic patients with glucose values in a wide range (3). Nevertheless, some data have shown that glucose results from alternative sites and fingertip were not identical. This difference was more pronounced when there was a rapid increase or decrease of blood glucose …
