Implementation of a Capillary Blood Self-Sampling Technique at Home for Monitoring of Patients With IBD
Schuurman et al.
The finding, in our words
This proof-of-concept study demonstrated that patients with inflammatory bowel disease could successfully perform capillary blood microsampling at home with high analytical success rates, and a majority preferred this decentralised approach over hospital venous draws.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
Capillary blood collected in BD Microtainer tubes remained stable for up to 12 days at room temperature and gave accurate HbA1c results when posted back, with high return rates and patient willingness to reuse the system.
In a 20-person proof-of-concept pilot among veterans with HIV, remote self-collection of dried blood spots for phosphatidylethanol monitoring was feasible and acceptable, with high return and analysis rates and positive feedback; a small first step toward decentralised alcohol biomarker monitoring rather than proof of it.
In a cohort of 62 participants evaluating home self-collection with the TassoPlus device, 38 returned samples, with 29% excluded due to insufficient plasma volume below 200 ΔL. Although viral load measurements in adequate samples correlated well with conventional testing (r = 0.800), the high failure rate and missed detection in low-volume viremic samples indicate that further technical refinements are necessary before clinical adoption.
This meta-analysis found strong agreement between self-collected capillary blood and venous samples for laboratory results. Capillary sampling was associated with significantly lower pain scores than venipuncture, particularly when using upper arm devices rather than fingerprick methods.
Self-collected capillary samples showed good agreement with venous samples for most safety monitoring parameters in patients with rheumatic disease, although platelet counts were less reliable and haemolysis affected some biochemistry results. Patients found the self-sampling process easy and virtually painless, suggesting it is a feasible option for decentralised monitoring.