A capillary blood micro technic for blood sugar utilizing the Unopette, a device for obtaining the required specimens, is described. The accuracy of the Unopette was tested and established.Three-hour capillary blood oral glucose tolerance tests, using this methodology, were performed on a total of 159 children in three age groups; one week to one-and-one-half years, one-and-one-half to three years, and three fo twelve years. Oral glucose solution was administered according to age and weight. All children had negative family histories for diabetes and were in good health. The mean blood sugar values for each of the three age groups were compared with one another for each of the sampling periods. No significant differences at the 5 per cent level were observed among the group means at any of the six testing periods. Over-all means and the values of ± 2 standard deviations and the third to ninety-seventh percentiles were determined for the three age groups combined. Values for the :± 2 standard deviation range were: Fasting (55 to 88 mg./ 100 ml.); thirty minutes (77 to 160 mg./lOO ml.); sixty minutes (66 to 149 mg./lOO ml.); ninety minutes (68 to 133 mg./100 ml.); 120 minutes (59 to 130 mg./lOO ml.); 180 minutes (46 to 105 mg./100 ml.). DIABETES 19:176-81, March, 1970. The increasing emphasis on identifying, 1 and possibly instituting early therapy 2 to individuals predisposed to diabetes has greatly increased the number of children who are being examined by means of oral glucose tolerance tests. The importance of standardization of the oral glucose tolerance test has been recently emphasized samples of adults. Nevertheless, capillary blood has been widely utilized, even though the dividing line between normal and abnormal is arbitrary. Klimt, Wolff, Silverman, and Conant 4 administered oral glucose tolerance tests to thirteen nondiabetic females. Simultaneous capillary and venous blood samples were taken at each sampling period. At the fasting and third hours the differences were insignificant. At the first hour the mean difference was 24 mg./ioo ml. and at the second hour, 13.3 mg./ioo ml. Only the first hour values were significantly different at the 95 per cent probability level, however. Mosenthal and Barry 5 performed fifty twohour oral glucose tolerance tests and found the average A-V difference to be about 30 mg./ioo ml. They made no significance testing of differences, however. Whichelow, Wigglesworth, Cox, Butterfield, and Abrams 6 compared arterial with venous blood sugar levels. They found that venous blood differed from arterial blood from + 26 mg./ioo ml. to -4 mg./ioo ml. during the two-hour glucose tolerance test.In order to circumvent the technical difficulties of obtaining numerous venous blood samples from infants and children, micro technics must be used. It is the purpose of this study to establish standards for capillary blood sugar values for children utilizing the Unopette* for collecting micro samples of blood.
MATERIAL AND METHODSThree groups of children, one week to one-and-a-half year...
