Is blood blood? Comparing quantitation of endogenous steroids and luteinizing hormone in concurrently collected venous serum and Tasso+ SST capillary serum samples
Goodrum et al.
The finding, in our words
Capillary blood collected with a Tasso+ device showed excellent agreement with venous serum for testosterone, the testosterone/androstenedione ratio, and luteinising hormone in 20 adults tracked over six weeks. The biomarkers remained stable when capillary samples were stored at room temperature, suggesting capillary microsampling could enable decentralised, patient-centric collection for the Athlete Biological Passport without cold-chain logistics.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
The study developed and validated a LC-HRMS method for intact IGF-I from VAMS dried blood according to World Anti-Doping Agency requirements and showed agreement with serum measurements, supporting decentralised sampling for antidoping testing.
Mongongu et al., Bioanalysis (paywalled) · source ↗
Capillary fingerstick sampling showed high correlation and agreement with venous sampling for serum AMH but with proportional bias, so it may improve access to testing yet should not be considered fully interchangeable without further validation.
Lavadia et al., Clinical and experimental reproductive medicine (paywalled) · source ↗
Capillary blood collected with Tasso+ devices demonstrated strong agreement with venous blood for primary Athlete Biological Passport markers (haemoglobin, reticulocytes, OFF-score, ABPS) with correlations ≥0.9, though platelet count showed poor concordance. Despite 44 of 209 samples failing pre-analytical checks mainly due to coagulation, high athlete acceptance and minimal pain support capillary sampling as a less invasive, viable alternative for decentralised anti-doping controls.
Requena-Tutusaus et al., Medicine and science in sports and exercise (paywalled) · source ↗
ALAS2 and CA1 mRNA were reliably quantified from venous-cellulose, capillary-cellulose and Tasso-M20 dried blood spots with strong linear agreement (r ≥ 0.96) and no bias for ALAS2. CA1 showed modest proportional bias of 9-22% only when Tasso-M20 was compared with cellulose cards in the rEPO cohort, but no significant differences in relative expression across matrices were observed at any timepoint. These findings support decentralised capillary sampling for longitudinal anti-doping monitoring.
Bejder et al., Drug testing and analysis · source ↗
Home DBS sampling gave testosterone results that agreed well with venous blood in men on intramuscular testosterone undecanoate, but showed falsely high values in those using topical gel, likely from skin contamination. Patients preferred home collection for its convenience, suggesting DBS is viable for decentralised monitoring of injectable testosterone if patients are taught proper technique.
Olthof et al., Clinical chemistry and laboratory medicine (paywalled) · source ↗