2024 · Clinical chemistry and laboratory medicine · paywalled
Stability of steroid hormones in dried blood spots (DBS)
Olthof et al.
The finding, in our words
Steroid hormones in dried blood spots remained within 15% of baseline for up to 14 days at 37C, and for up to 6 months at -20C, 4C and room temperature, with specific exceptions for androstenedione, 17-OHP, cortisone and cortisol. These findings support the use of DBS for decentralised hormone monitoring by defining storage limits that preserve analyte integrity during transit and storage.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
In a study of 46 perinatal nicotine users, dried blood spots and saliva were used weekly to measure reproductive hormones, finding that lower postpartum estradiol and greater peripartum declines in oxytocin were associated with increased nicotine craving and use. This demonstrates the feasibility of decentralised microsampling and remote surveys for longitudinal hormone tracking in vulnerable populations.
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.
This study found that dried blood spot samples stored at room temperature for four years correlated highly with serum measurements for testosterone and androstenedione, indicating that hematocrit adjustment may be unnecessary for serial monitoring in home-based self-sampling.
Capillary finger-stick dried blood spots yielded TSH measurements that agreed strongly with venous plasma (R² 0.988) and correctly identified hypothyroidism and hypothyrotropinemia in most cases. The analyte remained stable for at least four days between -20°C and +30°C, indicating potential for at-home collection in thyroid diagnostics and monitoring.
A US survey of 3,400 adults aged 62 to 90 collected up to 15 biomeasures at home, including saliva, dried blood spots and urine, with Salivette and Oragene among the devices used, which shows that several patient-centric sampling methods can run together in home-based research.