The Use of Extreme Value Statistics to Characterize Blood Glucose Curves and Patient Level Risk Assessment of Patients With Type I Diabetes

OBJECTIVE: Characterizing blood glucose curves and providing precise patient level risk assessment of hyperglycemia using extreme value statistics and comparing these assessments with traditional indicators of glycemic variability which are not designed to specifically capture the risk of hyperglycemia. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: One year return level (blood glucose level exceeded exactly once every year on average) and probability of exceeding and expected time spent above certain thresholds (600 and 400 mg/dL) per year were calculated. As a comparison, traditional metrics for glycemic variability were determined too. The effect of body mass index on extremes was also investigated using non-stationary models. Metrics were calculated on a dataset containing 170.8 patient-years of measurements of 226 patients. RESULTS: Nine high-risk patients were identified with the novel metrics: their estimated time spent above 600 mg/dL per year were above 2 hours. These patients were at moderate risk according to the traditional metrics. Higher body mass index was associated with more extreme glucose levels. CONCLUSIONS: Through these estimates it is possible to assess each patient’s individual clinical risk of hyperglycemia even beyond the observed blood glucose levels and detection limits. Additionally, it allows the assessment of the impact of clinical characteristics and treatments on blood glucose control in a novel, mathematically well-founded and potentially clinically more useful way than the already existing indicators.