Use of a capillary specimen in the laboratory to verify a point-of-care international normalized ratio: Avoidance of a venipuncture in a pediatric setting

Fingerstick capillary sampling showed strong agreement with venous sampling for mycophenolic acid, tacrolimus and cyclosporine A, with acceptable bias and improved agreement for mycophenolic acid after haematocrit correction. This minimally invasive approach may reduce procedural burden and support outpatient or home based therapeutic drug monitoring in children.

Minimally Invasive Therapeutic Drug Monitoring of Immunosuppressants in Children with Kidney Diseases: Validation of Fingerstick Sampling Using LC-MS/MS — Ishii et al., Pharmaceuticals · source ↗

• venous-agreement
• blood
• tdm
• haematocrit
• capillary
• pediatric
• immunosuppressants
• validation

This study validated a method requiring only 10 microlitres of serum and found high agreement between fingerstick capillary samples and venous serum for monitoring twelve antibiotics. The results suggest capillary serum sampling is a feasible, minimally invasive alternative that avoids the haematocrit effect associated with whole blood microsampling.

Feasibility verification of fingerstick capillary microsampling replacing venipuncture for therapeutic drug monitoring of 12 antibiotics using a rapid LC-MS/MS assay — Chen et al., Talanta (paywalled) · source ↗

• blood
• liquid
• capillary
• validation
• venous-agreement
• pediatric
• tdm
• antimicrobials

This study found moderate to strong correlations between SARS-CoV-2 antibody levels in fingerprick dried blood spots collected using the hemaPEN device and standard venous serum samples from children and adults. The results suggest that this microsampling device offers a reliable alternative to venepuncture for serological surveillance.

Evaluation of SARS-CoV-2 Antibody Response Between Paired Fingerprick (HemaPEN^®) and Venepuncture Collected Samples in Children and Adults — Mazarakis et al., Antibodies · source ↗

• blood
• capillary
• dbs
• validation
• venous-agreement
• pediatric
• serology

In children with SLE, VAMS finger-prick capillary blood gave haematocrit-adjusted MPA and MPAG concentrations indistinguishable from plasma, and the AUC from VAMS derived plasma-equivalent concentrations matched plasma AUC with R2 0.97. This supports accurate pharmacokinetically guided dosing of MMF using only three timed capillary microsamples.

Volumetric Absorptive Microsampling Combined with Mass Spectrometry to Support Pharmacokinetically-Guided Precision Dosing of Mycophenolate Mofetil in Pediatric Lupus Nephritis Patients — Zhao et al., The journal of applied laboratory medicine (paywalled) · source ↗

• vams
• venous-agreement
• blood
• tdm
• haematocrit
• dried
• capillary
• pediatric
• immunosuppressants
• validation

Dried blood spot sampling matched venous serum performance for islet autoantibody detection and was considered minimally invasive and convenient by parents and stakeholders, supporting its use for decentralised screening in home or community settings.

Establishing the performance and acceptability of dried blood spot sampling to screen for islet-specific autoantibodies — Faustini et al., Diabetic medicine : a journal of the British Diabetic Association · source ↗

• blood
• dried
• capillary
• dbs
• self-collection
• validation
• venous-agreement
• acceptability
• pediatric