2019 · Clinical chemistry and laboratory medicine · paywalled
Performance of a web-based application measuring spot quality in dried blood spot sampling
Veenhof et al.
The finding, in our words
A web-based application that grades dried blood spot quality from smartphone photographs agreed with laboratory technicians in 90% of trained and 87% of untrained collections, raising usable sample rates for therapeutic drug monitoring from 80% to 96% in trained settings and from 42% to 88% in untrained settings. Patients rated the app as acceptable and completed the check in under two minutes, suggesting it could reduce sample rejection in decentralised settings.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
This review found that volumetric microsampling devices, such as Mitra, HemaPEN, HemaXis DB10, and Tasso-M20, overcome haematocrit bias, whilst Telimmune plasma separation cards enable direct plasma collection without centrifugation. These technologies support patient-centric, decentralised sampling, though the authors note that clinical validation remains limited across different drugs and patient populations.
The study found that quantitative dried blood spot sampling provided high clinical agreement for tacrolimus and creatinine monitoring, with patients rating the self-collection devices as user-friendly. These results support the feasibility of decentralised therapeutic drug monitoring for immunosuppressants.
Dried blood spot collection proved feasible during parabolic flight, with seventeen of twenty volunteers successfully providing samples for caffeine pharmacokinetic profiling. The method yielded stable metabolic ratios between ground and weightless conditions, and participants reported high satisfaction, suggesting DBS could support therapeutic drug monitoring in remote or extreme environments such as long-term spaceflight.
Home DBS sampling gave testosterone results that agreed well with venous blood in men on intramuscular testosterone undecanoate, but showed falsely high values in those using topical gel, likely from skin contamination. Patients preferred home collection for its convenience, suggesting DBS is viable for decentralised monitoring of injectable testosterone if patients are taught proper technique.
The study determined that using self-collected dried blood spots alongside online surveys was a feasible and acceptable method for remote pre-exposure prophylaxis adherence monitoring, with 64% of participants returning at least one blood specimen.