Review and state of the art of diabetes technology

Diabetes technology represents an essential component of modern diabetes therapy. This is generally seen by the routine and widespread use of blood glucose meters, insulin pens and insulin pumps. Without these tools, a flexible intensified insulin therapy would not be feasible. In the last 10 years a new technology was added: continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) which enables a near euglycemic metabolic control to be established also in insulin treated patients without increasing the frequency of hypoglycemia. The availability of CGM systems with a good measurement quality also makes the development of artificial pancreas (AP) systems more realistic. Sensor augmented pump therapy (SaP) is the first practically available step in this direction. In addition, there are a number of other developments for the diagnosis and treatment of diabetic complications. The development of diabetes technology is closely correlated with the availability of new products in consumer electronics and information technology. The aim of this article is to provide a brief overview about the current situation of diabetes technology and developments that are on the horizon.