Dried blood spots in toxicology: from the cradle to the grave?

Abstract

About a century after its first described application by Ivar Bang, the potential of sampling via dried blood spots (DBS) as an alternative for classical venous blood sampling is increasingly recognized. Perhaps best known is the use of DBS in newborn screening programs, ignited by the hallmark paper by Guthrie and Susi half a century ago. However, it is only recently that both academia and industry have recognized the many advantages that DBS sampling may offer for bioanalytical purposes, as reflected by the strong increase in published reports during the last few years. Currently, major DBS applications include newborn screening for metabolic disorders, epidemiological surveys (e.g. HIV monitoring), therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM), as well as toxicology. In this review, we provide a comprehensive overview of the distinct subdisciplines of toxicology for which DBS sampling has been applied. DBS sampling for toxicological evaluation has been performed from birth until autopsy, aiming at the assessment of therapeutic drugs, drugs of abuse, environmental contaminants, toxins, as well as (trace) elements, with applications situated in fields as toxicokinetics, epidemiology and environmental and forensic toxicology. We discuss the strengths and limitations of DBS in the different subdisciplines and provide future prospects for the use of this promising sampling technique in toxicology.

Keywords::

• Toxicology
• dried blood spots (DBS)
• forensic
• newborn
• trace elements
• filter paper
• toxicokinetics
• drugs of abuse

Acknowledgments

We wish to acknowledge Dr. V. Stove for her critical reading of the manuscript.

Declaration of interest

The author’s affiliations are as shown on the cover page. This paper was prepared during the normal course of employment by Ghent University. The authors have sole responsibility for the writing and content of the paper.