2020 · Journal of clinical virology : the official publication of the Pan American Society for Clinical Virology · paywalled
Performance evaluation of the Aptima HIV-1 RNA Quant assay on the Panther system using the standard and dilution protocols
Rossetti et al.
The finding, in our words
The study found that HIV-1 viral load testing using fingerstick blood collected in BD Microtainer tubes showed high correlation, R² ≥0.980, with standard venous assays, supporting decentralised patient-centric microsampling. The authors note the limitation that testing was performed at a single laboratory site.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
A study of decentralised patient-centric microsampling found that 82% of untrained participants, 47 of 57, successfully self-collected acceptable fingerstick blood in Microtainer tubes. All 46 tested samples yielded accurate HIV viral suppression results compared to venipuncture, though this remote monitoring approach is limited to US courier services and temperature conditions.
Fingerstick plasma collected in Microtainer tubes showed 100% concordance with matched venous plasma on the Abbott ARCHITECT SARS-CoV-2 IgG assay, n=109. Fingerstick dried blood spots found high concordance with venous samples, n=61, supporting these microsampling methods for decentralised serology.
Capillary blood samples collected by staff or self-collected by participants showed strong correlation and clinically acceptable agreement with venipuncture for influenza haemagglutination inhibition titers. The small differences observed were not clinically meaningful, and adequate sample volume was achieved in most attempts, supporting the feasibility of decentralised serological testing.
This study found strong concordance between capillary samples collected via the Tasso device and standard venous draws for VirScan serology, indicating that self-collected samples are a practical alternative for decentralised research. The authors advise against interchanging these collection methods within a single longitudinal study to avoid introducing technical variability.
Although most kidney transplant recipients successfully collected capillary blood samples at home, haemolysis and transport conditions affected analyte stability. Agreement with venous sampling was acceptable for haemoglobin and creatinine, but potassium and haematocrit exceeded total allowable error limits.