Blood Glucose Testing Strips Recalled by Abbott

Abbott Laboratories is recalling as many as 359 million blood glucose testing strips that could give false results to diabetics, the company and U.S. regulators said on Wednesday.

Abbott said the strips - used with its Precision Xtra, Precision Xceed Pro, MediSense Optium, Optium, OptiumEZ and ReliOn Ultima glucose monitoring systems - should not be used and would be replaced at no cost.

The company said it uncovered the problem after a routine internal review found that certain lots of the strips took too long to absorb the blood from a patient's finger, which could lead to falsely low readings of their blood sugar levels.

That could cause patients to try to boost their blood sugar unnecessarily, it said in a statement.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, in a separate statement, said it was working with Abbott on the recall.

Affected strips were made between January and May and sold both to consumers and healthcare facilities, the FDA said, adding that exposure of the strips to heat or prolonged storage could also be an issue.

Abbott added that the monitoring systems themselves are not affected by the recall.