Dried blood spot cards greatly simplify the collection, handling and storage of blood samples compared to other blood sampling methods. For the last 30 years, dried blood spot testing has become a favoured option in various research areas and other applications because of its analytical and informational uses.
Areas that benefit from dried blood spot sampling include:
- Wellness testing and preventive medicine
- Homesampling and hometesting
- Personalised nutrition
- Anti-Doping
- Communicable diseases
- Drugs and drug studies
- Epidemiology
- Environmental research
- Forensics
- Monitoring of therapeutic drugs
- Neonatal screening
- Toxicology
DBS cards are an informative, safe and convenient way to diagnose many infectious diseases, including Ebola, Hepatitis B and HIV. They are also used in the health sector and the private market for patients to gain a deeper insight into their health by testing for analytes and biomarkers.
Typical Analytes
A long list of analytes can be tested using a blood sample collection kit. This includes acylcarnitines, glucose, vitamins and some of the analytes mentioned below:
- SHBG
- Vit B12-active
- VITAMIN K2
- Fatty Acids
- 19 FAA
- MMA
- Metals (chromium, selenium, zinc iodine, magnesium, copper, etc.)
- OMEGA 3:6
- Vitamin E
- Vitamin K1
- Alergens (food, pollen, fur, etc.)
It is also possible to test for specific antibodies of more than 30 viruses and microorganisms. A DBS blood test can provide results on an extensive range of biomarkers and an in-depth understanding of a patient’s health. Specific conditions that can be screened for using DBS cards include tick-borne diseases such as encephalitis and Lyme disease, vaccine-controlled infections like measles and mumps, respiratory tract infections including SARS-CoV-2, sexually transmitted diseases like syphilis, and various autoimmune diseases.
We have mentioned a few analytes and biomarkers that can be tested because the list is long. In fact, due to the large and constantly increasing number of biological markers that can be analyzed from a dry blood spot and other biological samples, the final list was abandoned (W. H. Hannon and B. L. Therrell, 2014).
The overall goal of testing health has also evolved to include wellness testing, thus the list has expanded to include a range of key wellness biomarkers, including:
- AMH
- Amino acids 19FAA (Hcy + MMA)
- Cortisol and cortisone
- FSH
- HbA1c
- LH
- Minerals
- Peth
- Prolactin
- Total cholesterol
- Total testosterone and free testosterone
- Vitamin A
- Vitamin D
- Vitamin D + vitamin A
- Vitamin D + vitamin A +K2 (MK7)
DBS cards are a fast, simple and safe method for blood sampling and shipping and a convenient and reliable way to store blood samples for short- and long-term applications. DNA information in DBS cards remains unchanged for 20 years and more.