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Allergic contact dermatitis to glucose sensors - Parents Survey
Over the past few years, our diabetes team has seen a number of cases of severe skin reactions (allergic contact dermatitis) to glucose sensors. This has resulted in some children having to stop using the device altogether which been devastating for the young person and their family.
Contact dermatitis may be due to an allergic reaction to substances contained in the adhesives of the product or its plastic housing. The manufacturers of these medical devices however are not obliged to label the product with the potential allergens present.
Despite direct contact with the companies by ourselves and reporting every case to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) Yellow Card scheme, this information has still not been made available to us. This makes identification of the allergen by patch testing and selection of alternative devices very difficult.
We would like to raise awareness of this issue and the need for better labelling of medical devices. We also feel it is important to understand how common a problem it is for each of the devices available.
We have contacted all Paediatric diabetes teams for information on their experience with this problem. We would now really love to hear from all the children and young people and their families who are using continuous glucose monitoring (either Real time eg Dexcom, Medtronic or flash glucose monitoring eg Freestyle Libre) to see how common this problem is.
We would be grateful if you could complete our survey.
Any questions/comments please don’t hesitate to contact us
Dr Julie Smith Consultant Paediatrician Julie.smith178@nhs.net
Dr Tanya Bleiker Consultant Dermatologist Tanya.bleiker1@nhs.net
