2022 · BMJ sexual & reproductive health · paywalled
Novel use of menstrual blood for monitoring glycaemic control in patients with diabetes: a proof-of-concept study
Naseri et al.
The finding, in our words
Menstrual blood HbA1c levels showed strong concordance and a robust linear relationship with systemic venous HbA1c in both healthy and diabetic women, supporting its use as a non-invasive alternative for glycaemic monitoring.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
Capillary dried blood spots, after haematocrit-dependent conversion, showed good agreement with plasma for 25-hydroxyvitamin D quantification, with 90 per cent of results within 20 per cent of plasma and substantial to almost perfect agreement in status classification, supporting reliable home self-collection for large-scale vitamin D monitoring.
Heughebaert et al., Clinical chemistry and laboratory medicine (paywalled) · source ↗
The study found that although participants preferred patient-centric microsampling devices for home use, the agreement with venous plasma for measuring CRP and cytokines was inconsistent, indicating that further validation is required before these methods replace standard venipuncture.
Capillary finger-stick dried blood spots demonstrated strong analytical agreement with venous serum for prostate-specific antigen (R² = 0.987) and remained stable for 31 days across a wide temperature range. This less invasive microsampling approach enables at-home self-collection, supporting decentralised screening and tele-diagnostics for prostate cancer.
van Vugt et al., The journal of applied laboratory medicine (paywalled) · source ↗
A study of 292 patients found that the slopes of home-collected stimulated dried blood spot C-peptide levels over six months predicted 12-month venous mixed-meal tolerance test results, P<0.001. This shows decentralised microsampling can monitor beta-cell function, though further validation is required to confirm its reliability and broader applicability.
Hendriks et al., Diabetes care (paywalled) · source ↗
Older adults achieved 98% adherence when self-collecting dried blood spots at home for inflammatory markers, with 97% of samples yielding valid results. Test-retest reliability was good (ICCs 0.70–0.76) and correlation with venous blood was strong (r=0.60–0.99), demonstrating that remote capillary sampling is a feasible and valid method for decentralised assessment of inflammation in older adults.
Reed et al., Brain, behavior, and immunity (paywalled) · source ↗