Outcomes of Sweat Conductivity Testing and Referral Patterns for Cystic Fibrosis: A 10-Year Retrospective Single-Center Study in Albania
Shllaku-Sefa et al.
The finding, in our words
In a 10-year retrospective cohort of 567 patients referred for cystic fibrosis evaluation, sweat testing achieved a low quantity-not-sufficient rate of 2.3% and identified an 11.3% test positivity rate.
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.
The study validated a method for measuring cystic fibrosis drugs in dried blood spots, showing statistical equivalence to plasma concentrations, which supports their use as a less invasive alternative for therapeutic drug monitoring. It also found higher drug levels in nasal swabs, indicating localised accumulation at the disease site, which could inform more personalised treatment.
In 15 critically ill children with multiple organ dysfunction, a population pharmacokinetic model built on volumetric absorptive microsamples found that estimated glomerular filtration rate and age drove cefepime clearance and distribution; the authors take this as showing the method is workable for antimicrobial monitoring in this group.
Amajor et al., Antimicrobial agents and chemotherapy · source ↗
This study found that volumetric absorptive microsampling shows satisfactory agreement with venous plasma for monitoring several antiseizure medications in paediatric patients. However, a blood-to-plasma conversion factor was required to estimate plasma concentrations for clobazam and carbamazepine metabolites due to poor capillary-to-plasma interchangeability.
Simeoli et al., Pharmaceuticals (paywalled) · source ↗
A liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method was successfully validated for measuring androstenedione, 17α-hydroxyprogesterone, and 11-ketotestosterone in dried blood samples collected via volumetric absorptive microsampling. The dried samples remained stable at room temperature for up to a week and after postal transit, and plasma concentrations could be reliably estimated from the microsamples when adjusting for haematocrit.