Use of Dried Blood Spot Specimens for Infectious Disease Testing

Course overview

This webinar will introduce dried blood spots (DBS) as an alternative specimen type for infectious disease testing. The speakers will discuss pre-analytical considerations that need to be considered with DBS collections, provide potential uses for this specimen type and review recently literature evaluating DBS specimens for the diagnosis of infectious diseases. Learning Objectives Describe the pre-analytical considerations necessary to ensure optimal DBS specimen collections. List clinical scenarios for which DBS specimens may be preferred for clinical laboratory testing in routine patient care. Discuss performance characteristics of DBS specimen types for select infectious disease serologic and molecular assays.