Dried Blood Spot Sampling

Lower blood volumes, easier shipping, and storage at ambient temperatures lead to a significant simplification of the blood collection process and considerably reduced costs.

In a nutshell

What is Dried Blood Spot Sampling?

Easy way of collecting, shipping and storing blood samples
Simplifies the blood collection process and significantly reduces the costs involved

Dried Blood Spot Sampling (DBS) has been known for more than five decades. In recent years the usage of DBS has gained increasing importance since this method shows strong advantages compared to the conventional collection and analysis of blood or plasma samples. These advantages include the need for remarkably lower blood volumes and easier shipping and storage, mainly at ambient temperatures.

Streamlining Blood Sample Analysis

The blood sample needs to be extracted from the DBS card prior to the analysis. This was a major drawback of DBS previously. Sample extraction from a high number of DBS cards was very tedious and required many process steps to be performed manually. Hence, analysis of DBS was time-consuming and costly before the introduction of the CAMAG DBS-MS 500 instrument. The DBS-MS 500 enables fully automated sample recognition, integration of an internal standard to the DBS and direct sample extraction of the DBS from the card. The extract is guided online to an analytical system of choice (i.e. MS, LC-MS), and the system is cleaned after each extraction to prevent cross-contamination.

expanding applications of dbs technology

A typical field of application is newborn screening (NBS), where only a very small amount of blood from the newborn is available. Every newborn in developed countries is screened for inborn disorders via DBS.

TDM

Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) is a major field of interest for the DBS technology, since drawing blood samples can be performed by the patients themselves and it is minimally invasive.

Samples can be shipped to centralized laboratories for analysis via the standard mail delivery.

Reduction of test animals in preclinical studies due to lower blood volumes
Compliance with the 3R requirement of animal studies (replacement, reduction, refinement)
Personalized healthcare analysis of metabolites via automated DBS analysis is more affordable for the end-user and represents a growing market.
Testing of possible abuse of regulated substances is performed via DBS as well

Other body fluids

Dried Urine Spot

Urine is a biological fluid that is readily collectable and available. The shipment of urine samples is inconvenient. The sample preparation is tedious and requires many consumables. Dried Urine Spot (DUS) cards can easily be shipped and are integrated into the fully automated analysis concept for the DBS-MS 500. The urine matrix has been extensively researched and tested, and the technology has been in place for years. Quantification of targets in DUS can be facilitated by using creatinine as a marker for the urine concentration. Specific metabolites present in urine reflect a previous drug uptake for a period of hours to a few days.

Dried Plasma Spot

Dried Plasma Spot (DPS) analysis is the combination of well-known and established analytical methods with the general advantages of dried matrix spot analysis, such as easy shipping and storage, increased sample stability and fully automated sample handling. Plasma of different patients has no significant difference in viscosity in contrast to whole blood samples. It can also be directly extracted from the filter paper card and then be guided online into the analytical system.

product

CAMAG® DBS-MS 500 HCT

The fully automated DBS-MS 500 HCT from CAMAG contains state-of-the-art technology to extract target substances out of a DBS (Dried Blood Spot). The DBS is directly eluted in the extraction chamber and the analytes are guided online to the analytical system of choice or the extract is collected into a vial or 96 well plate. Sample processing is automated, including the application of an internal standard through a high-precision sprayer, detecting the sample’s hematocrit through an optical module, and a barcode assignment from the DBS card. In addition to the analytical results, a picture of each DBS card before and after extraction and the run parameters are reported to maintain full traceability and the highest quality.