Nouvelles applications des systèmes alternatifs de micro-prélèvements

Abstract

AbstractThe use of Dried Blood Spots (DBS) in the field of biology goes back to the work of Guthrie, initially employed for the neonatal screening of phenylketonuria, and extended since to the screening of a dozen of hereditary diseases. At first qualitative or semi-quantitative, the DBS method was used to the quantification of numerous biomarkers with a major difficulty, due to the lack of the precision of the blood volume collected. Amongst the factors influencing this volume, hematocrit is without any doubt, the most restricting. Two new systems called volumetric: HemaPEN™ and Mitra™ allowed to do without the hematocrit value. They allow to sample with precision the volumes between 2,5µL and 30µL. As the DBS, these new tools have many advantages like the simplicity of storage and transportation. However, the low volumes of blood collected, although compatible with pediatric studies or animal experimentation, require the development of sensitive analytical methods. In general, these methods rely on chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry, validated with a longer sample preparation phase compared to that of conventional samples. Despite their high costs, volumetric systems allowed the emergence of multiple quantitative applications in many fields of medical biology, such as pharmacokinetics, therapeutic drug monitoring, clinical and forensic toxicology.