2020 · Current environmental health reports · paywalled
Minimally Invasive Biospecimen Collection for Exposome Research in Children's Health
Petrick et al.
The finding, in our words
This review highlights how low-volume, minimally invasive microsampling of matrices such as dried capillary blood, interstitial fluid and saliva can enable untargeted metabolomics and longitudinal exposome studies in children, with the potential for home self-collection to improve convenience and parental support.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
Dried blood spot sampling matched venous serum performance for islet autoantibody detection and was considered minimally invasive and convenient by parents and stakeholders, supporting its use for decentralised screening in home or community settings.
VAMS microsampling found no significant difference from venous blood for tacrolimus in paediatric patients; samples were stable for 14 days, with average difference between paired at-home samples of 0.12 ± 0.94 ng/mL.
Guardian-collected capillary dried blood spots were feasible for home monitoring of lamotrigine, and for carbamazepine and valproic acid when conversion factors were applied, with only 4 of 190 comparisons risking a conflicting dose decision and negligible risk of patient harm. Levetiracetam DBS showed high variability against plasma and is recommended only for checking nonadherence, not for dose adjustment.
A dried blood spot LC-MS/MS method was validated for therapeutic monitoring of carbamazepine, lamotrigine, levetiracetam and valproic acid. Concentrations from dried blood spots correlated strongly with plasma (R² 0.92) across venous and capillary samples, enabling home self-collection and reducing clinic visits for children with epilepsy.
Dried VAMS and DBS samples collected at home and analysed after a median of three days showed poor agreement with standard venous or capillary blood for HbA1c monitoring. In contrast, wet VAMS samples analysed immediately demonstrated excellent agreement, indicating that sample drying and delayed analysis compromise reliability for decentralised HbA1c measurement.