Monitoring of hemoglobin and erythropoiesis‐related mRNA in athletes and patients Dried Blood Spots

Assess the feasibility of monitoring hematological parameters, such as hemoglobin (HGB) and Reticulocyte mRNA in Dried Blood Spots (DBSs), to improve the Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) and patient care. Here, we measured HGB and erythropoiesis-related mRNA from ALAS2and CA1 in venous blood (VB) and DBS from healthy athletes and hemodialysis patients on MIRCERA® treatment. Finally, EPO was directly measured in DBSs using ELISA. Changes in HGB over time were well captured with both VB and DBS. When combining HGB and mRNA analysis in DBSs, the DBSs OFF-Score was more sensitive than the classical ABP OFF-Score to detect EPO use. Moreover, DBSs are more efficient also for direct EPO detection. To conclude, DBS represents a practical new tool for the analysis of HGB and OFF-score calculation, and could help to enhance blood doping detection and predict the response to EPO in hemodialysis patients.