The most common screening test for diabetes and prediabetes is the fasting plasma glucose test (FPG). It involves overnight fasting and use of a needle-tipped syringe to withdraw a blood sample for analysis of glucose (blood sugar) in a laboratory. Public health authorities recommend routine diabetes screening in people who are 45 or older or who have other risk factors for the disease, such as obesity or a family history of diabetes.

Physicians sometimes employ a nonfasting blood test called the glycohemoglobin A1C test to screen for diabetes, but they mainly use it to assess long-term glucose control in patients who have diabetes. In addition, people with diabetes perform frequent glucose monitoring on their own with glucose meters.

Scientists have been trying to develop diabetes tests that are painless and more accurate. One tool that has been under development is a desktop device that briefly shines fluorescent light on a patient's forearm to detect biological markers in the skin that are known as advanced glycation end products (AGEs). Research has shown that AGEs can indicate diabetes and predict its complications.

Researchers from the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and several companies, including the manufacturer of the fluorescent device, compared a prototype to the FPG and glycohemoglobin test. They studied 351 volunteers ages 21 to 86 who were at risk for prediabetes or diabetes. To confirm results they used a blood test called the oral glucose tolerance test, which is more complicated and specific than the FPG.

In detecting 100 milligrams of glucose per deciliter of blood, the cutoff for diagnosing prediabetes, the FPG had 58 percent sensitivity, the glycohemoglobin test, 64 percent sensitivity and the fluorescent device, 75 percent sensitivity, the researchers reported. Thus it was 29 percent more accurate than the FPG and 17 percent more accurate than the glycohemoglobin test in revealing prediabetes or diabetes, without an increase in false positives (incorrectly identifying impaired glucose in someone with normal glucose), they stated.

The device is scheduled to become available in early 2008.

The study was presented last week at the 2006 Scientific Assembly of the American Academy of Family Physicians, according to the researchers.

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