Capillary blood microsampling to determine serum biopharmaceutical concentration: Mitra<sup>®</sup> microsampler vs dried blood spot
Bloem et al.
The finding, in our words
The Mitra® microsampler demonstrated good recovery of seven therapeutic monoclonal antibodies from capillary blood after storage at room temperature for one month, with marginally better performance than conventional dried blood spot cards. This validates a practical protocol for decentralised therapeutic drug monitoring of biologic therapies.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
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.
The study developed and validated a reliable HPLC-MS method for quantifying multiple tyrosine kinase inhibitors from VAMS microsamples of capillary blood, showing acceptable accuracy, precision, and 28-day stability at -21°C, with results comparable to venous plasma in 194 samples from patients with solid tumours. This enables therapeutic drug monitoring using microsamples in oncology practice.
The study developed and validated a rapid LC-MS/MS method for quantifying cefazolin in capillary whole blood collected via VAMS, plasma, and plasma ultrafiltrate, showing robust performance across matrices and successful application in a pediatric pilot cohort for therapeutic drug monitoring.
In matched clinical samples from rheumatoid arthritis, VAMS and DBS showed strong agreement for methotrexate polyglutamates (slopes 0.95-1.07; bias within -4.21% to 0.36%; SRCC ≥ 0.969), with up to 100% of total MTXPG results within ±20% limits; capillary microsampling agreed closely with whole blood but differed from red blood cells, indicating matrix-specific differences that must be accounted for when interpreting against RBC-based reference values.
Dried saliva collected with the Mitra device correlated strongly with wet saliva but poorly with plasma unbound and total concentrations, indicating it is not a reliable substitute for plasma in routine therapeutic drug monitoring of mycophenolic acid and its glucuronide metabolite. Capillary blood collected via VAMS remains a promising alternative for long term monitoring in paediatric patients.