Citation

Massaro AN, Wu YW, Bammler TK, MacDonald JW, Mathur A, Chang T, Mayock D, Mulkey SB, van Meurs K, Afsharinejad Z, Juul S. Pediatr. Res. 2019; 85(5): 655-661.

Affiliation

Pediatrics-Division of Neonatology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1038/s41390-019-0298-7

PMID

30661082

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Data correlating dried blood spots (DBS) and plasma concentrations for neonatal biomarkers of brain injury are lacking. We hypothesized that candidate biomarker levels determined from DBS can serve as a reliable surrogate for plasma levels. DESIGN/METHODS: In the context of a phase II multi-center trial evaluating erythropoietin for neuroprotection in neonatal encephalopathy (NE), DBS were collected at enrollment ( < 24 h), day 2, 4, and 5. Plasma was collected with the first and last DBS. The relationship between paired DBS-plasma determinations of brain-specific proteins and cytokines was assessed by correlation and Bland-Altman analyses. For analytes with consistent DBS-plasma associations, DBS-derived biomarker levels were related to brain injury by MRI and 1-year outcomes.

RESULTS: We enrolled 50 newborns with NE. While S100B protein, tumor necrosis factor α, interleukin (IL)1 β, IL-6, IL-8 demonstrated significant DBS-plasma correlations, Bland-Altman plots demonstrated that the methods are not interchangeable, with a 2 to 4-fold error between measurements. No significant relationships were found between DBS levels of TNFα, IL-6, and IL-8 and outcomes.

CONCLUSION(S): Further work is needed to optimize elution and assay methods before using DBS specimens as a reliable surrogate for plasma levels of candidate brain injury biomarkers in NE.

Language: en