2024 · Journal of clinical laboratory analysis · open access
A Systematic Literature Review on the Use of Dried Biofluid Microsampling in Patients With Kidney Disease
Lamond et al.
The finding, in our words
This systematic review of 67 studies involving 34,739 kidney disease patients found dried blood microsampling was mainly used for immunosuppressant therapeutic drug monitoring and kidney function assessment. The approach offered cost savings, was preferred by patients for home self-collection, and provides a patient-centric opportunity to upscale longitudinal sampling and reduce participation bias in decentralised kidney disease research.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
VAMS microsampling found no significant difference from venous blood for tacrolimus in paediatric patients; samples were stable for 14 days, with average difference between paired at-home samples of 0.12 ± 0.94 ng/mL.
Zhao et al., J. Mass Spectrometry and Advances in the Clinical Lab · source ↗
This review surveys published LC-MS/MS methods that use dried blood microsampling for therapeutic drug monitoring of immunosuppressants in transplantation, chemotherapy and autoimmune disease, finding that volumetric dried blood samples can replace conventional venous draws for home sampling and improve patient quality of life. The authors discuss pre-analytical considerations, clinical applicability, cost-effectiveness, harmonisation gaps and patient perception, concluding that obstacles to routine clinical implementation remain despite growing methodological maturity.
Deprez & Stove, Journal of chromatography. A (paywalled) · source ↗
Clinical validation for tacrolimus and mycophenolic acid monitoring showed that while volumetric absorptive microsampling met analytical criteria after concentration correction, conventional dried blood spots achieved superior adherence to strict clinical criteria, sample quality, and cost efficiency without significant haematocrit bias.
Paniagua-González et al., Journal of pharmaceutical and biomedical analysis (paywalled) · source ↗
This review found that volumetric microsampling devices, such as Mitra, HemaPEN, HemaXis DB10, and Tasso-M20, overcome haematocrit bias, whilst Telimmune plasma separation cards enable direct plasma collection without centrifugation. These technologies support patient-centric, decentralised sampling, though the authors note that clinical validation remains limited across different drugs and patient populations.
Huhn & Scherf-Clavel, Therapeutic drug monitoring (paywalled) · source ↗
This study validated a dried blood spot method for tacrolimus monitoring and demonstrated agreement with venous whole blood measurements in kidney transplant recipients. It also found that dried blood spot analysis of the biomarker CXCL-10 was elevated in patients experiencing rejection or infection, supporting its use for decentralised monitoring.