Patient-Centric Assessment of Thiamine Status in Dried Blood Volumetric Absorptive Microsamples Using LC-MS/MS Analysis
Verstraete & Stove
The finding, in our words
The authors validated an LC-MS/MS method for measuring thiamine diphosphate in dried blood collected by VAMS, achieving accuracy within 6.5% bias and imprecision below 13% CV. The method was unaffected by haematocrit variation and showed superior stability, with samples remaining stable for one week at 60°C or high humidity and for at least one month at room temperature, enabling thiamine screening without cold chain logistics.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
An LC-MS/MS assay using volumetric absorptive microsampling achieved 72.5% to 98.9% accuracy and under 8% precision for measuring circulating endocannabinoids and related lipid mediators. However, drying time significantly altered 2-AG and 2-OG concentrations, and marked differences were observed between whole blood and plasma measurements.
This proof-of-concept study compared VAMS and dried blood spot microsamples with fluid blood for untargeted lipidomic profiling using high-resolution LC-MS/MS, finding that VAMS is a viable option for untargeted lipidomics with the advantage of haematocrit independence over traditional dried blood spots.
VAMS recovery relative to DMPK-C depended on the protein, being lower for β-lactoglobulin and myoglobin but higher for cytochrome c and albumin, and haematocrit affected protein quantification from both materials. VAMS showed strong correlation (R² ≥ 0.983), accuracy of 71 to 101 per cent and precision with RSD at or below 20 per cent for six model proteins spiked into blood, supporting its use for decentralised protein analysis with awareness of haematocrit effects.
Volumetric absorptive microsampling with the Mitra device enables accurate, reproducible quantification of circulating protein biomarkers from a 10 µL finger-prick blood sample, with extraction recovery of 100–111% across haematocrit levels and stable peptide responses after 22 weeks at -80°C. The automated mass spectrometry workflow reproducibly detected 1661 peptides from 423 proteins, correlating with plasma measurements, which supports remote, personalised disease monitoring.
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.