HIV RNA measurement in dried blood spots of HIV-infected patients in Thailand using Abbott m2000 system

Abstract

World Health Organization recommends using dried blood spots (DBS) for HIV RNA viral load (VL) measurement whenever plasma processing is not convenient or feasible. DBS collected from 80 treatment-naïve HIV-infected patients presenting in three hospitals of two different regions of Thailand were shipped to a central laboratory along with corresponding plasma specimens. Viral load was measured in both DBS and plasma using the Abbott m2000 system. HIV RNA levels were strongly correlated (r = 0.94) with a mean of differences of 0.23 log 10 copies/mL. Using the 1,000 copies/mL cutoff , the sensitivity of DBS was 97% (95%CI, 91-100%) and specificity was 75% (95%CI, 19-99%). DBS are useful to scale-up HIV RNA VL testing in settings with limited access to VL testing.

Study To Evaluate the Performance of a Point-of-Care Whole-Blood HIV Viral Load Test (SAMBA II HIV-1 Semi-Q Whole Blood)

“…For patients living in remote places, the logistics of taking blood samples, getting a plasma sample to the regional laboratory, and obtaining the results are great, and delays of 3 weeks are not unusual with many patients not having access to testing ( 2 – 5 ). Dried blood spot (DBS) samples have been used for testing patients in remote places, but these still suffer the disadvantage of having to be transported to regional laboratory facilities with inherent delays ( 6 – 8 ). DBS performance in testing HIV VL is also variable, as the volume of blood on the card is not fixed, with some studies showing relatively poor performance ( 6 – 8 ).…”

“…Dried blood spot (DBS) samples have been used for testing patients in remote places, but these still suffer the disadvantage of having to be transported to regional laboratory facilities with inherent delays ( 6 – 8 ). DBS performance in testing HIV VL is also variable, as the volume of blood on the card is not fixed, with some studies showing relatively poor performance ( 6 – 8 ). There are other whole-blood HIV viral load point-of-care assays available, but they suffer from poor performance with low specificity (<80%) due to the contamination of the specimen with nucleated blood cells and high error rates ( 12 , 21 ).…”

“…When blood samples are taken for testing in rural areas, it can take 3 weeks or more to obtain the result with potential negative clinical consequences ( 4 , 5 ). More recently, the testing of dried blood spot (DBS) samples has been attempted to overcome the problem of access to testing for patients living in hard-to-reach areas ( 6 , 7 ). However, this approach still has the problems of delays due to transportation of samples to laboratories, test performance that is suboptimal when compared with that obtained from plasma samples, and the expense of using current testing technology ( 6 – 8 ).…”

An update on human immunodeficiency virus and dentistry

“…ELISA is a highly sensitive immunological test used to detect and quantify substances, including antibodies, antigens, proteins, glycoproteins and hormones [18] . The World Health Organization recommends using dried blood spots (DBS) for the measurement of HIV RNA viral load (VL) whenever plasma processing is not convenient or feasible [19] . The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is used to detect HIV RNA although IgG sensitivity tests are more common [20] .…”

Optimization of RNA Extraction from Dry Blood Spots for Nanostring Analysis

“…Dry Blood spot (DBS) technology was first described more than 100 years ago and has been used extensively since the 1960's for neonatal phenylketonuria testing (Moat, George, & Carling, 2020). DBS has since been expanded to include testing of other protein and molecular biomarkers of disease (Khamduang et al., 2020; Loria et al., 2020; Mercatali et al., 2018; Prinsenberg et al., 2020). DBS has advantages and disadvantages compared to traditional whole or wet blood methodology (Carpentieri et al., 2021; Moat et al., 2020).…”