Whole genome amplification of cell-free DNA enables detection of circulating tumor DNA mutations from fingerstick capillary blood
Gyanchandani et al.
The finding, in our words
Fingerstick capillary blood achieved 100% concordance with venous blood for detecting circulating tumour DNA mutations in metastatic breast cancer after whole-genome amplification, although allele frequencies showed some variation. This provides evidence that less-invasive capillary sampling could enable longitudinal cancer surveillance and theranostic monitoring.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
The True Dose TD-EPI kit demonstrated strong analytical agreement with venous blood for epirubicin monitoring, and the capillary samples remained stable for 72 hours at ambient temperature.
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.
Capillary blood sampling showed near-perfect correlation with venous sampling for total PSA across a wide clinical range with negligible bias, and samples remained stable at ambient temperature for up to eight days, supporting feasibility of home self-testing for prostate cancer.
Sodi et al., The journal of applied laboratory medicine (paywalled) · source ↗
Capillary blood collected with the Mitra® device showed correlation with venous samples for paclitaxel therapeutic drug monitoring, but wide confidence intervals suggest the methods may not be interchangeable. While plasma and whole blood concentrations were more closely aligned, the variability raises questions about using self-collected capillary samples for dose individualisation without further validation.
The LC-MS/MS assay for uracil was validated with good accuracy and precision, and uracil concentrations measured in Tasso-SST capillary serum correlated highly with venous plasma (rs 0.910), indicating that capillary microsampling can reliably identify patients with DPD deficiency for safer fluoropyrimidine dosing.
Menestrina Dewes et al., Clinical biochemistry (paywalled) · source ↗