2020 · The Lancet. Child & adolescent health · paywalled
Acceptability, safety, and patterns of use of oral tenofovir disoproxil fumarate and emtricitabine for HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis in South African adolescents: an open-label single-arm phase 2 trial
Gill et al.
The finding, in our words
PrEP was safe and well tolerated among South African adolescents who persisted with treatment, but adherence measured by tenofovir diphosphate in dried blood spots declined as study visits became less frequent. By week 36, 43% of participants had discontinued PrEP, highlighting the need for tailored adherence support and flexible follow-up schedules in decentralised HIV-prevention programmes for young people.
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.
This mixed-method study demonstrated that 97% of parents successfully collected dried blood spot samples from their children, with 72% reporting the process was easy and 80% preferring home collection. The results suggest that decentralised self-sampling for therapeutic drug monitoring is feasible and can reduce stress for families managing paediatric epilepsy.
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.
Enhanced visual and textual guidance significantly improved the quality of dried blood spots self-collected by children and adolescents, increasing the proportion of acceptable cards from 47.6% to 86.6%, which supports the feasibility of home sampling for therapeutic drug monitoring.
The study found that quantitative dried blood spot sampling provided high clinical agreement for tacrolimus and creatinine monitoring, with patients rating the self-collection devices as user-friendly. These results support the feasibility of decentralised therapeutic drug monitoring for immunosuppressants.