Dried blood spots for reliable biomonitoring of poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs)

This study validated a method for measuring the alcohol biomarker phosphatidylethanol using two volumetric absorptive microsampling devices, finding that the Mitra device met all validation criteria and agreed with venous sampling. The Capitainer device was deemed suitable but showed reduced accuracy at higher concentrations, with a small proportional negative bias compared to venous results.

A validated method for capillary phosphatidylethanol 16:0/18:1 quantification with two different 10-µl volumetric absorptive microsample devices in the same setup — Andreassen et al., Journal of analytical toxicology (paywalled) · source ↗

• vams
• venous-agreement
• neoteryx-mitra
• blood
• dbs
• dried
• toxicology
• capillary
• validation

Lead can be measured accurately in dried blood spots by ICP-MS only when matrix-matched calibrators are used; aqueous calibrators perform poorly. The three methods evaluated showed strong agreement with whole blood analysis and offer a robust option for decentralised lead screening in children, though the recognised limitations of dried blood spots remain.

Matrix-matched calibrators are necessary for robust and high-quality dried blood spots lead screening assays by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry — Franco et al., Journal of mass spectrometry and advances in the clinical lab · source ↗

• blood
• dried
• dbs
• validation
• venous-agreement
• pediatric
• toxicology

In AML and CLL, 91% of VAMS venetoclax results fell within 20% of plasma after individualised haematocrit correction; in home sampling, 18 of 21 patients self-sampled independently and 76% of returned samples were analysable, which shows home microsampling is workable, though the authors ask for multicentre validation.

Clinical Validation of Venetoclax Volumetric Microsampling in Leukemia, with Whole-Blood-to-Plasma Conversion and Self-Microsampling Feasibility — Levens et al., Clinical Pharmacokinetics (paywalled) · source ↗

• vams
• venous-agreement
• blood
• dbs
• tdm
• self-collection
• haematocrit
• dried
• oncology
• capillary
• validation

The analysis indicates that dried blood spots and volumetric absorptive microsampling enable minimally invasive monitoring of prohibited substances, with volumetric absorptive microsampling offering improved quantitative reliability over traditional dried spots.

Liquid Chromatographic Methods for Microsampling in Sports Drug Monitoring: Progress in DBS and VAMS — Zhang, Biomedical chromatography : BMC (paywalled) · source ↗

• vams
• doping
• blood
• dbs
• dried
• steroids
• toxicology
• hormones
• validation
• biomarkers

VAMS gave near‑quantitative recovery for cadmium and lead in human blood and correlated strongly with venous sampling, with pre‑cleaning improving correlation and lowering background lead, supporting its use for decentralised biomonitoring of these toxic elements.

Application of volumetric absorptive microsampling (VAMS) for the simultaneous determination of cadmium and lead in blood — Gutknecht et al., Environmental monitoring and assessment (paywalled) · source ↗

• vams
• venous-agreement
• blood
• dried
• toxicology
• validation