Benefits of the dried blood spot method for immunosuppressive therapy

Many drugs for immunosuppressive therapy have a narrow range between the minimum therapeutic and toxic dose. To control the concentration of these drugs, which have a narrow therapeutic range, and to provide effective and safe pharmacotherapy, therapeutic drug monitoring is carried out, which requires the collection of a large number of biosamples. However, to date, TDM is associated with various difficulties that do not allow the selection of the required number of samples from a particular group of patients. And to solve these difficulties, more convenient and less invasive methods for collecting biological material are being developed, one of which is the “dried blood drop” method. The collection of biosamples using the “dried blood drop” method is quite simple and does not require special phlebotomy skills, while these samples can be stored in room conditions without the use of special refrigeration equipment. This creates a number of advantages over standard biosampling methods. However, this technology is not without drawbacks that must be overcome in order to use this technique in therapeutic drug monitoring of immunosuppressive drugs with a narrow therapeutic window.