Liquid Biopsy at Home: Delivering Precision Medicine for Patients with Cancer During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Napolitano et al.
The finding, in our words
During the COVID-19 pandemic, 218 home-based liquid biopsies for cancer patients in Italy achieved a 98 per cent success rate, saving patients 495 hours and the National Health Service €51,574 compared with hospital testing. The service delivered substantial time and cost benefits for patients, caregivers and healthcare providers, supporting its integration into routine oncological practice.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
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.
The authors observe that self-sampling devices for capillary blood are gaining traction as a patient-preferred alternative to venous collection, with one centre reporting a 15 percent reduction in laboratory test volumes when local collection was offered. They argue that successful integration into total laboratory automation requires addressing cost, transport regulations and sample volume adequacy while ensuring robust device design and seamless workflow compatibility.
Poland & Cobbaert, Clinical chemistry and laboratory medicine (paywalled) · source ↗
Urine trans-renal DNA and plasma circulating tumour DNA showed concordant dynamics that paralleled clinical course in a metastatic colorectal cancer patient treated with an ALK inhibitor. Urine-based detection of the CAD-ALK rearrangement anticipated radiological confirmation of disease progression, demonstrating that self-collected urine can non-invasively monitor tumour evolution and emerging resistance mutations during therapy.
Siravegna et al., Annals of oncology : official journal of the European Society for Medical Oncology (paywalled) · source ↗
This review summarises how emerging HPV detection methods including CRISPR/Cas systems, droplet digital PCR and isothermal amplification, combined with self-collected vaginal swabs and liquid biopsy from urine or blood, could improve screening acceptability and enable point-of-care testing compared with conventional approaches that require invasive sampling and centralised laboratory infrastructure.
Shi et al., Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · source ↗
Capillary blood sampling showed near-perfect correlation with venous sampling for total PSA across a wide clinical range with negligible bias, and samples remained stable at ambient temperature for up to eight days, supporting feasibility of home self-testing for prostate cancer.
Sodi et al., The journal of applied laboratory medicine (paywalled) · source ↗