A Comparison of Two Blood Collection Methods for Monitoring Immunosuppressant Drugs in Transplant Patients
Session Number
E10
Advisor(s)
Shannon Haymond, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago Faye Vicente, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago
Location
B-115
Start Date
28-4-2016 10:40 AM
End Date
28-4-2016 11:05 AM
Abstract
After surgery, transplant patients are required to take immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of their lives. Too much or too little of these drugs impact their health. Therefore, drug concentrations are routinely monitored in their blood collected by the standard venipuncture method. This study compares and contrasts venipuncture to a minimally invasive, microsampling collection method, namely the Mitra device. Adult transplant patient blood was collected using both approaches, prepared and analyzed for immunosuppressant drug concentrations using a liquid-chromatography mass spectrometry based testing method. Although using the Mitra device has positive outcomes including smaller sample size and ease of patient use, preliminary results suggest that using the device will be much more costly and time consuming to process in the laboratory than the current clinical method. Some reasons for this include using fresh blood while performing more steps with the Mitra. Also, the lab workflow is currently designed around the use of vacutainer tubes, so this device will not be consistent with the other tests run in the lab. With this information, the current blood collection method for immunosuppressant drug monitoring may be kept for some time until a new alternative comes along.
A Comparison of Two Blood Collection Methods for Monitoring Immunosuppressant Drugs in Transplant Patients
B-115
After surgery, transplant patients are required to take immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of their lives. Too much or too little of these drugs impact their health. Therefore, drug concentrations are routinely monitored in their blood collected by the standard venipuncture method. This study compares and contrasts venipuncture to a minimally invasive, microsampling collection method, namely the Mitra device. Adult transplant patient blood was collected using both approaches, prepared and analyzed for immunosuppressant drug concentrations using a liquid-chromatography mass spectrometry based testing method. Although using the Mitra device has positive outcomes including smaller sample size and ease of patient use, preliminary results suggest that using the device will be much more costly and time consuming to process in the laboratory than the current clinical method. Some reasons for this include using fresh blood while performing more steps with the Mitra. Also, the lab workflow is currently designed around the use of vacutainer tubes, so this device will not be consistent with the other tests run in the lab. With this information, the current blood collection method for immunosuppressant drug monitoring may be kept for some time until a new alternative comes along.