Artifactual Hypoglycemia: An Old Term for a New Classification

The American Diabetes Association and The Endocrine Society workgroup on the 2013 classification of hypoglycemia (1) in patients with diabetes changed the previously used term “relative hypoglycemia” to “pseudo-hypoglycemia” while defining symptoms of hypoglycemia without confirmatory low glucose values and failing to include falsely low readings of glucose on capillary blood samples (1,2). In the past, pseudo-hypoglycemia was defined as a discrepancy between low capillary glucose and normal plasma glucose. We illustrate the current incongruity by reporting a case of a patient with Raynaud phenomenon with falsely low capillary blood glucose measured by finger stick.A 75-year-old female with esophageal cancer post esophagectomy was found to have repeated asymptomatic low finger-stick blood glucose values varying from 11 to 53 mg/dL that were treated …