A Review on Dried Blood Spots (DBS) as Alternative, Archival Material for Detection of Viral Agents (Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Hepatitis B Virus)

In recent years there appears a variety of new and innovative applications of the dried blood spots. The areas of their range of application are medicine, neonatology, virology, microbiology, toxicology and pharmacokinetics, metabolic exchange, therapeutic drug monitoring, toxicology, and control of environmental pollution. The advantages of DBS technology can be combined into four main groups: (1) compared to conventional venipuncture, requires less blood volume, which is especially important in pediatrics and neonatology; (2) the procedure for blood collection is easy, inexpensive and noninvasive; (3) the risk of bacterial contamination or hemolysis is minimal; and (4) DBS can be maintained for a long time with almost no impact on the quality of the analysis. In recent years is increasing the application of DBS as method for seroepidemiological survey with focus viral infections: measles, mumps, rubella and hepatitis B virus. The DBS technique is optimized as an alternative approach (non-invasive, inexpensive, not requiring trained staff and cold chain for transport and storage) of venipuncture collection of clinical material in virology. This method facilitates the scientific researches about the concentration of virus specific antibodies in peripheral blood taken from a finger or heel; determining the percentage susceptibility / protection of the studied group of patients againt vaccine-preventable infectious - measles, mumps, rubella and hepatitis B; social benefits - non-invasive technique for testing of small children and infants and applications in regions in the countries with not well developed logistics infrastructure.