Quantification of neurofilament light and glial fibrillary acidic protein in finger-prick blood
Kolanko et al.
The finding, in our words
Finger-prick dried plasma spots showed moderate correlation with venous plasma for neurofilament light (ρ=0.57) and GFAP (ρ=0.58) in patients with neurodegenerative disease and healthy volunteers. This demonstrates feasibility of decentralised neurodegeneration biomarker measurement without immediate centrifugation or ultra-low temperature storage.
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 ↗
This study validated a dried blood spot method for tacrolimus monitoring and demonstrated agreement with venous whole blood measurements in kidney transplant recipients. It also found that dried blood spot analysis of the biomarker CXCL-10 was elevated in patients experiencing rejection or infection, supporting its use for decentralised monitoring.
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 ↗
ALAS2 and CA1 mRNA were reliably quantified from venous-cellulose, capillary-cellulose and Tasso-M20 dried blood spots with strong linear agreement (r ≥ 0.96) and no bias for ALAS2. CA1 showed modest proportional bias of 9-22% only when Tasso-M20 was compared with cellulose cards in the rEPO cohort, but no significant differences in relative expression across matrices were observed at any timepoint. These findings support decentralised capillary sampling for longitudinal anti-doping monitoring.
Bejder et al., Drug testing and analysis · source ↗
This review of microsampling methods for neurodegenerative disease biomarkers finds that dried plasma spots and upper-arm capillary devices correlate strongly with venous plasma and CSF for pTau-217, NfL and GFAP. Yet heterogeneous study designs, lack of standardised extraction methods and uncertainty over pre-analytical handling mean these approaches remain limited to research settings rather than routine decentralised screening or monitoring.
Hicks et al., Expert review of neurotherapeutics (paywalled) · source ↗