2024 · Colorectal disease : the official journal of the Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland · paywalled
Feasibility, reliability and satisfaction of (automated) capillary carcinoembryonic antigen measurements for future home-based blood sampling: the prospective CASA-I study
Voigt et al.
The finding, in our words
Capillary sampling for carcinoembryonic antigen showed near perfect agreement with venous results and was preferred by most participants, supporting reliable home based collection that could reduce hospital visits.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
This study established conversion methods for estimating plasma concentrations from whole blood VAMS samples for seven out of ten oral anticancer drugs, finding good agreement between capillary and venous samples. Patients reported a positive experience with home sampling using this microsampling technique.
Meertens et al., Therapeutic drug monitoring · source ↗
A 2025 review maps 28 microsampling devices, from dried spots and volumetric absorptive tips to upper-arm liquid capillary collectors, and names what a laboratory must control before their results are used: the haematocrit effect in non-volumetric dried samples, interstitial fluid from finger milking, volume, haemolysis and transport stability. Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic ask for the same two things, a device the patient can use safely and a sample fit for the test.
VAMS matched serum for the kinase inhibitors nilotinib, cabozantinib, dabrafenib and ruxolitinib, r 0.94–0.97, with serum reliably predictable for the first three, and 93% of at-home samples were collected correctly: at-home VAMS shown feasible for routine cancer-drug monitoring.
Zimmermann et al., J. Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Analysis (paywalled) · source ↗
Patients self-collected upper-arm capillary blood with press-activated devices including TAP II; autoantibody and CRP results agreed with venous at r≥0.98, were rated less painful, and 98.6% got enough blood within two attempts.
The TAP device showed near perfect agreement with venous sampling for anti-Müllerian hormone measurements, with higher accuracy and lower pain compared to ADx card. This validates TAP as a reliable option for patient-led fertility hormone testing at home.
Silliman et al., Reproductive biology and endocrinology : RB&E · source ↗