Finally Roche is releasing XS model.
I contacted them many times in the past but could not get them to commit to a firm release date.
We have been using XS for about 6 months and been very happy.
It is very small but we did not care too much about the size because other machines were small enough.
Nice thing about it is the ease of applying samples because it lets you touch the side of stip to apply like a glucose monitors. You can also touch the top of the stip. And you do not need to referegerate the strip.
We have not used other machines so I cannot make a fair comparison with other machines. I did lots of research on this forum and different manufacturers web sites to compare the statistical information, etc and XS seemed a good choice.
The choice was not entiely made by us because a doctor friend went ahead and bought it for us while we were still trying to decide which one
. And it turned out to be pretty good choice.
We did about 20 comparison with
our local lab. (note the emphasis on "our local lab". There seems to be variance between commercial labs and your local lab may produce different result. I think Lance in Ontario saw a bigger variance than us from his local lab).
1/3 of time, INR differ by 0.3, 1/3 of time: 0.2, 1/3 of time:0.1 to 0.0 difference.
Did not see a bias (meaning sometime XS was higher, sometimes it was lower without a definitve pattern)
We go to the local lab where the vein draw and the testing are done in the same building to minimize the chance of the sample sitting in the courier's car too long, etc and raise a hell when we do not get the result within a few hours.
Hope this helps..
EJ