Feasibility of clinical newborn metabolic screening in a high-volume maternity center in Nepal
Khan et al.
The finding, in our words
A feasibility study at a Kathmandu maternity hospital showed newborn metabolic screening using dried blood spots achieved 98.8% parental consent, driven primarily by cost-free participation. Despite pandemic-related transport delays to a central Indian laboratory, results were delivered within two weeks, detecting metabolic abnormalities in 13 of 825 infants, with 90% of healthcare providers endorsing routine implementation.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
This review establishes that microsampling across blood, saliva, urine and stool matrices offers validated workflows and regulatory recognition for human biomonitoring comparable to conventional methods. It finds that these decentralised approaches enhance participant acceptability and enable screening in remote or low-resource settings.
A systematic review found mixed economic evidence for microsampling in therapeutic drug monitoring; one study reported no cost reduction with DBS home-sampling, €688 versus €676, whilst another predicted savings up to 61%. The authors caution that more work is required to assess costs alongside clinical outcomes and optimise logistics for decentralised implementation.
Dried blood spot sampling matched venous serum performance for islet autoantibody detection and was considered minimally invasive and convenient by parents and stakeholders, supporting its use for decentralised screening in home or community settings.
Whole-genome sequencing of dried blood spots from 1,000 newborns identified 16 infants with high-chance results, most missed by standard screening. The 13-day turnaround and high parental acceptability show a feasible, scalable model for decentralised genomic screening.
Primary caregivers of children with metabolic disorders found at-home dried blood spot collection acceptable after training, which could enable more timely and cost-effective monitoring. This supports the feasibility of decentralised, patient-centric sampling for long-term condition management.