OBJECTIVES: SMBG is one of the core components of diabetes therapy. It supports a safe and effective drug therapy and provides additional feedback on how diet and lifestyle impact blood glucose levels. In 2011 a Chinese guideline on SMBG was published. SMBG, in contrast to most diabetes drugs, is not reimbursed. This study aims to assess the level of SMBG usage in patients on different diabetes therapies.  METHODS: 1sthalf year 2011 data (10,418 cases) from the CSD PDS Diabetes survey were used for this explorative analysis. PDS Diabetes is a syndicated research with a fixed representative panel of endocrinologists and cardiologists from 13 large Chinese cities. Patient cases are documented in a standardized format. SMBG usage was analyzed by therapy-subgroups: oral diabetes therapy only (OAD 54%), basal supported oral therapy (BOT 18%), conventional insulin therapy (CT 20%), intensive insulin therapy (IIT 6%) and OTHERS (2% - not reported). RESULTS: Ninety-five percent were patients with type 2 diabetes. A total of 5288 patients (50.8%) had a meter for home-testing. Shares of testers by therapies (OAD / BOT / CT / IIT) were 34.7%, 60.1%, 53.4% and 48.4%. Average weekly test frequencies were 2.8, 3.3, 3.0 and 4.0 respectively. In the IIT group 1% tested at least 3 times a day. HbA1c levels were by 0.2%, 0.5%, 0.4% and 1.2% lower in SMBG users. CONCLUSIONS: High share of patients don’t have a meter to perform SMBG at home. For testers with BOT, CT and IIT test-frequencies remained clearly below the Chinese guideline recommending 10, 10 and 21 test per week respectively. For IIT (SMBG is needed to support insulin dose adjustments) only 1% tested at the guideline-recommende frequency. In IIT patients differences in HbA1 were largest between testers and non-testers. Further research is needed to clarify if e. g. education or reimbursement could potentially resolve these shortfalls.