DBS-MS 500 Hematocrit
Dried Blood Spot testing uses dry spots of blood on a paper card instead of liquid blood/plasma. It is an easy way of collecting, shipping and storing blood samples.
DBS has several advantages over collection of liquid blood.
CAMAG DBS-MS 500 HCT enables a fully automated system capable of barcode based sample ID, automated spraying of an internal standard to the blood spot, followed by sample extraction. The extract is guided online to an analytical system of choice (i.e. MS/MS- MS/LC-MS/PAL-ELISA), and the system is cleaned after each extraction to ensure zero carryover.
Its applications are enormous, from newborn screening, dope testing of athletes, drug testing, serological surveys, therapeutic drug monitoring etc.
Newborn Screening: The traditional punch-and-elute Newborn Screening testing sample collection method is a very labor-intensive process. Automated DBS-MS systems attached to Mass spectrometry analyzers, is a faster way to collect samples where a circular area of the DBS is directly eluted from the filter paper card without any punching. The advantage of using this is reduced analysis and labor cost while improving the results.
Fig 1: DBS setup for the analysis of newborn screening
Dope testing of Athletes: DBS-MS can be used for anti-doping purposes. It offers a reliable high-throughput analysis with minimum turnaround time. In addition, with the Hematocrit (HCT) detection module, the results can be targeted to a hematocrit value. In 2019, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) announced the development and implementation of DBS for routine analysis for the 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympic Games in Beijing. The advantages included increased sampling intervals at the same time reducing storage and shipping costs of the samples.
Drug Testing: The use of DBS in drug screening offers an innovative way to simplify the blood collection process while reducing costs at the same time. It can combine on-site sampling and highly reliable and efficient drug testing, by sampling four small blood spots of about 10-20 uL from the fingertip of the subject and sending the samples to a centralized laboratory, where testing can be done.
Serological Testing: The formation and reduction of IgG and IgM antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 play an important role in epidemiological studies. Researchers have identified that Dried Blood Spot testing (DBS) can be used for serological testing of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in a simple and hassle-free manner. The advantage of using the DBS-MS 500 HCT (Hematocrit) method is that the sampling numbers for blood based detection of COVID-19 can be increased with accuracy, as the time of analysis is reduced significantly due to automation. By using the DBS-MS 500 HCT, the costs associated with sample processing, storage and shipment can be reduced significantly.
Fig 2: CoVid antibody analysis using DBS-MS 500 HCT for population screening
DBS-MS as an alternative to conventional blood testing is a game changer with multiple benefits.
References:
Figure 1; CAMAG Application Note on New-born Screening using DBS-MS.
Figure 2; CAMAG Application Note on serological testing of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies.