2023 · Journal of chromatography. B, Analytical technologies in the biomedical and life sciences · paywalled
New perspectives for the therapeutic drug monitoring of tacrolimus: Quantification in volumetric DBS based on an automated extraction and LC-MS/MS analysis
Rosé et al.
The finding, in our words
A method for tacrolimus quantification from volumetric dried blood spots collected with a hemaPEN device was validated using automated LC-MS/MS extraction. The assay was linear from 1 to 100 µg/L and met all analytical and clinical validation criteria, enabling decentralised therapeutic drug monitoring of immunosuppressants through home-based capillary blood sampling.
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.
Microsampling reduces sample volume, invasiveness, logistics and biohazard risk while improving stability and enabling at-home self-sampling, yet clinical adoption remains slow and requires standardisation and harmonisation to realise its patient-centric and decentralised potential.
Thangavelu et al., Analytical science advances · source ↗
Validated a dried blood spot assay for tacrolimus and mycophenolic acid therapeutic drug monitoring and creatinine-based kidney function in kidney transplant recipients. DBS showed excellent agreement with venous sampling for tacrolimus trough and AUC, adequate agreement for creatinine-based GFR trend monitoring, but suboptimal agreement for mycophenolic acid AUC and inadequate performance for iohexol-based GFR. VAMS was generally inferior. This enables remote, simultaneous immunosuppressant and kidney function monitoring in outpatients, reducing clinic visits.
Zwart et al., British journal of clinical pharmacology · source ↗
The review evaluates microsampling techniques including dried matrix spots, volumetric absorptive microsampling and capillary microsampling for SARS-CoV-2 bioanalytical applications, outlining their respective advantages and disadvantages to guide researchers and clinicians in pandemic-related diagnostics.
Protti et al., Journal of pharmaceutical and biomedical analysis · source ↗
In AML and CLL, 91% of VAMS venetoclax results fell within 20% of plasma after individualised haematocrit correction; in home sampling, 18 of 21 patients self-sampled independently and 76% of returned samples were analysable, which shows home microsampling is workable, though the authors ask for multicentre validation.
Levens et al., Clinical Pharmacokinetics (paywalled) · source ↗