Remote self-collection of upper-arm capillary blood for autoantibody analysis in immune-mediated rheumatic diseases
Zarbl et al.
The finding, in our words
Patients self-collected upper-arm capillary blood with press-activated devices including TAP II; autoantibody and CRP results agreed with venous at r≥0.98, were rated less painful, and 98.6% got enough blood within two attempts.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
TAP II capillary serum, both professionally collected and self-collected, correlated with venous serum at R > 0.9 for eight analytes including ALT, AST, cholesterol, HDL and triglycerides. Creatinine correlated acceptably but carried a consistent negative bias, and carbon dioxide, potassium and albumin did not reach acceptable agreement: the useful reading is that the panel has to be validated, not the device alone.
Self-collected capillary blood samples posted by standard mail showed high concordance with couriered venous samples for HbA1c, creatinine and lipid parameters, supporting their use for remote monitoring in diabetes management and screening.
In a cohort of 62 participants evaluating home self-collection with the TassoPlus device, 38 returned samples, with 29% excluded due to insufficient plasma volume below 200 ΔL. Although viral load measurements in adequate samples correlated well with conventional testing (r = 0.800), the high failure rate and missed detection in low-volume viremic samples indicate that further technical refinements are necessary before clinical adoption.
A head-to-head of four upper-arm capillary devices, including TAP Micro Select, versus fingerstick and venous: experience and performance varied by device with none clearly superior, while analyte correlations with venous were similar across all.
Plasma lipidomes from self-collected upper-arm capillary blood were statistically indistinguishable from paired venous plasma, most classes at r=0.95–0.99, validating at-home capillary self-collection for lipidomics.