Pitfalls in Diagnosing Hypoglycemia Due to Exogenous Insulin: Validation and Utility of an Insulin Analog Assay

Abstract

Objective: To overcome the limitations of commercially available insulin immunoassays which have variable detection of analog insulin and can lead to clinically discordant results and misdiagnosis in the workup of factitious hypoglycemia.

Patients and methods: We performed analytical validation of a liquid chromatography high resolution accurate mass (LC-HRAM) immunoassay to detect insulin analogs. We completed clinical assessment using a large cohort of human serum samples from 78 unique individuals, and subsequently used the assay in the evaluation of eight individuals with high diagnostic suspicion for factitious hypoglycemia.

Results: The performance characteristics show that the LC-HRAM immunoassay can be applied to detect five commonly used synthetic insulin analogs (lispro, glulisine, aspart, glargine metabolite, and detemir) in human serum. Our clinical cases show that this assay could be used in the diagnosis of factitious hypoglycemia by identifying the analog insulin(s) in question.

Conclusion: The LC-HRAM immunoassay reported here overcomes a gap in our diagnostic pathway for hypoglycemia. The results obtained from our studies suggest that this method is appropriate for use in clinical laboratories when factitious hypoglycemia is considered as a differential diagnosis.