Use of a commercial ELISA for the detection of measles-specific immunoglobulin G (IgG) in dried blood spots collected from children living in low-resource settings
Colson et al.
The finding, in our words
The study validated a commercial ELISA for measuring measles-specific IgG in capillary dried blood spots from children, finding 100% sensitivity and 96.8% specificity against matched venous serum with 92% overall agreement, then applied the method to 1,588 field-collected samples in Mexico and Nicaragua. The procedure was acceptable to surveyors and participants, showing that dried blood spots are a feasible and accurate means of assessing population immunity to measles in low-resource settings.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
A 2025 review maps 28 microsampling devices, from dried spots and volumetric absorptive tips to upper-arm liquid capillary collectors, and names what a laboratory must control before their results are used: the haematocrit effect in non-volumetric dried samples, interstitial fluid from finger milking, volume, haemolysis and transport stability. Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic ask for the same two things, a device the patient can use safely and a sample fit for the test.
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.
Faustini et al., Diabetic medicine : a journal of the British Diabetic Association · source ↗
The authors observe that self-sampling devices for capillary blood are gaining traction as a patient-preferred alternative to venous collection, with one centre reporting a 15 percent reduction in laboratory test volumes when local collection was offered. They argue that successful integration into total laboratory automation requires addressing cost, transport regulations and sample volume adequacy while ensuring robust device design and seamless workflow compatibility.
Poland & Cobbaert, Clinical chemistry and laboratory medicine (paywalled) · source ↗
Plasma separation cards showed high specificity (99.3%) but moderate sensitivity (87.5%) against EDTA-plasma for HIV-1 viral load monitoring at a 1,000 copies/ml threshold in a South African cohort. Despite favourable usability among healthcare workers, laboratory-reported technical difficulties must be addressed to enable reliable decentralised scale-up in resource-constrained settings.
Chimoyi et al., Journal of clinical microbiology · source ↗
VAMS microsampling found no significant difference from venous blood for tacrolimus in paediatric patients; samples were stable for 14 days, with average difference between paired at-home samples of 0.12 ± 0.94 ng/mL.
Zhao et al., J. Mass Spectrometry and Advances in the Clinical Lab · source ↗