2024 · Critical reviews in clinical laboratory sciences · paywalled
Methods applied to neonatal dried blood spot samples for secondary research purposes: a scoping review
Canning et al.
The finding, in our words
This scoping review of 67 studies reports that residual neonatal dried blood spot samples can yield measurable nucleic acids, proteins, metabolites and other analytes after storage lasting up to 40.5 years across varied temperatures, but recovery of amino acids, antibodies and environmental pollutants is notably compromised. The work demonstrates that long-term DBS storage is feasible for many biomarkers yet analyte-specific stability limits must be considered when designing decentralised diagnostics and secondary research protocols.
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 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.
This systematic review of 67 studies involving 34,739 kidney disease patients found dried blood microsampling was mainly used for immunosuppressant therapeutic drug monitoring and kidney function assessment. The approach offered cost savings, was preferred by patients for home self-collection, and provides a patient-centric opportunity to upscale longitudinal sampling and reduce participation bias in decentralised kidney disease research.
Lamond et al., Journal of clinical laboratory analysis · source ↗
This review of 2022 to 2023 work surveys dried blood microsampling for targeted and untargeted metabolomic and lipidomic profiling, finding the approach viable across paediatric research, therapeutic drug monitoring, metabolite screening, biomarker discovery, sports supervision, clinical disorder studies and forensic toxicology. The authors note that dried blood spots and VAMS dominate the published literature over other volumetric formats, and argue that harmonising analytical methods would accelerate wider clinical adoption of microsampling as an alternative to conventional plasma or serum profiling.
Couacault et al., Analytical science advances · source ↗
High-performing dried blood spot assays have been developed and validated for measuring environmental exposures to tobacco smoke, trace elements, and several endocrine-disrupting chemicals, confirming the method as a viable minimally invasive alternative to venous sampling for field-based public health screening and paediatric epidemiological studies. Further validation is required for cadmium, arsenic, inorganic mercury, and bisphenol A to expand the panel of reliable decentralised exposure biomarkers.
Jacobson et al., Journal of exposure science & environmental epidemiology · source ↗