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Viva Aviva!

David Mendosa

Aug 1, 2005

Meter News

A dozen companies market blood glucose meters in the United States, but Accu-Chek, by Roche Diagnostics, is number one in sales both in the United States and worldwide. They were also one of the first brands of blood glucose meters. The original Accu-Check bG came out in 1982.

Currently, Roche Diagnostics sells five models of Accu-Chek meters here: the Active, Advantage, Compact, Complete and Voicemate.

In May the Food and Drug Administration approved Roche’s newest meter, the Accu-Chek Aviva system. Roche says that the Accu-Chek Aviva will have a suggested retail price of $65 to $75 and will ship in August.

Roche provided me with a sample meter for my review. What I like best is its precision, small blood sample size and speed.

The new strips used by the Aviva are large, touchable and easy to handle. They have a large dosing area that makes it easy to see where to apply the blood sample.

The Accu-Chek Aviva gives reliable results in five seconds and requires just 0.6 microliters of blood—one of the smallest blood samples required of any meter.

The small sample size means you aren’t limited to testing on your fingers. You can use less painful alternate sites, such as your palm, forearm, upper arm, calf or thigh.

Other important features of this meter are its ability to work with Accu-Chek’s Compass diabetes management software, its up to four daily programmable acoustic test reminders, and hypoglycemia threshold warnings that you can set from glucose readings of 60 to 80 mg/dl.

Roche Diagnostics says that the Accu-Chek Aviva has an ergonomic design. More simply, I would say that it just feels good and solid in the hand.

Finally, a pleasant surprise were three words written on the back of the meter: “Made in USA.”

Long live the Aviva!

Multiclix Lancing

Roche Diagnostics packages the Accu-Chek Aviva system with the Multiclix, a new lancet device integrated with a drum of six 30-gauge lancets. It gives you a choice of 11 different depth settings.

This is not the company’s first drum. The Accu-Chek Compact meter uses a drum so you don’t have to handle its test strips. But handling lancets is more challenging, and the drum is likely to be even more appreciated.

The Accu-Chek Multiclix is surprising small, barely larger that the Accu-Chek Softclix lancet device. Roche Diagnostics plans to sell the Accu-Chek Multiclix separately for use with any meter.

Categories: Blood Glucose, Diabetes, Diabetes, Food, Low Blood Sugar, Meters

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