One of the services provided by the Australian National Diabetes Services Scheme (NDSS) is access to insulin pump consumables (reservoirs and infusion sets). Occasionally there are changes to the products available, and another such change quietly slipped in last week.
A range of Medtronic infusion sets have just been taken off the market.
Who is affected?
Basically, people using pumps with “luer-lock” connections. Not users of current Medtronic pumps.
The luer-lock connection has been used by a few pumps in the past (such as the Medtronic 507/508c, the Animas Vibe/2020, the Deltec Cozmo, and the Tandem t:slim X2 when using the old “720” cartridges). It’s also currently used by the DANA R/RS (when using a luer-lock adapter) and the Accu-Chek Combo. I have a Combo pump, so I am affected by this.
What has been dropped?
Note that these units do not have “Paradigm” in their names, so do not suit Medtronic’s current pumps.
- Quick-Set with 110cm tubing (6mm and 9mm cannula)
- Silhouette with 110cm tubing (17mm cannula)
- Sure-T with 80cm tubing (6mm and 8mm cannula) and with 60cm tubing (10mm cannula)
I guess Medtronic decided they weren’t selling enough of these to make it worthwhile. That does leave those of us relying on them with a problem though.
Last year when the Animas infusion sets finally disappeared off the market Medtronic did do some PR saying they had luer-lock sets available for people to use. Just fewer now than last month!
What luer-lock sets are still available?
There are still sets available for luer-lock users. Just not necessarily the particular one you might have been used to. For example I’ve been using the above Quick-Set (110cm, 6mm) in recent months. It’s best to realise this before you show up at your NDSS Access Point to place an order!
The current options for Combo/etc users are:
90˚ teflon:
- Accu-Chek FlexLink with 30/60/80cm tubing and 6/8/10mm cannula
- Medtronic Quick-Set with 60cm tubing and 6/9mm cannula
- Cleo 90 with 61/79/107cm tubing and 6/9mm cannula
- MyLife Orbit soft with 60/75cm tubing and 6/9mm cannula
- MyLife Orbit soft with 105cm tubing and 9mm cannula
Angled teflon:
- Accu-Chek TenderLink with 30/60/80cm tubing and 13/17mm cannula
90˚ steel:
- Accu-Chek Rapid-D (separate 20/50/70cm tubing, and 6/8/10mm cannula)
- Medtronic Sure-T with 60cm tubing and 6/8mm cannula
- MyLife Orbit micro with 60/75cm tubing and 5.5/8.5mm cannula
Moving on
Personally I really like having set tubing of 110cm, or 75-80cm at a pinch, as it gives me lots of flexibility in where I place my pump and my cannulae.
I’m sad to see the long options disappear for the Silhouette (although 80cm is still available with the otherwise-identical TenderLink) and for the Quick-Set. Once my current boxes of Quick-Sets are used up I’m unlikely to use any more. Luckily I do still have some boxes of 110cm Animas Comfort sets (identical to the TenderLink/Silhouette) to work through, but now I don’t have any option to replace them!
We do still have long-ish options available with the Orbit, Cleo, TenderLink, and FlexLink sets. Unfortunately I personally don’t like the FlexLink (although I know people who do).
Stretching out your remaining sets
My existing boxes with long tubing are going to last me for a while, as generally I don’t use new tubing with every cannula (just with each new reservoir). For example I can stretch out the life of my remaining 110cm Quick Sets by interleaving them with the sites from boxes of shorter Paradigm Quick Sets (discarding the shorter tubing). This sort of thing can be done with many infusion sets, and is described in an earlier article.
Also note that boxes of cannulae/sites (without tubing) are available through NDSS for the following (and are a little cheaper than the with-tubing boxes):
- Accu-Chek TenderLink (identical to the Medtronic Silhouette)
- Accu-Chek FlexLink
- MyLife Orbit micro
- MyLife Orbit soft
Stay safe out there everyone, and hopefully don’t get surprised when you place your next NDSS order!
Bugger and S@#$