To develop care processes and personalized cancer medicine by new technologies.

Important results from the project

Tamoxifen is an approved drug for breast cancer. Every fifth patient on tamoxifen forms low doses of tamoxifen´s active metabolites, below the threshold dose for therapeutic benefit, while high concentrations increase the risk of side effects. To ensure that the patients receive the correct daily dose of tamoxifen, a follow-up of the patients is required, which in turn requires a well-developed laboratory structure. Through a capillary sampling kit as a self-sampling alternative, the burden on routine care is reduced. We aim to validate that sampling kit.

Expected long term effects

A capillary sampling kit was used for 40 women with breast cancer who received adjuvant 20 mg tamoxifen daily. A research nurse conducted the first capillary blood test and the patient the following three tests. Participants were asked to provide one vial of capillary blood and two samples of conventional venous blood for blood and plasma. Mean tamoxifen´s active metabolites, TAM, 4HT and Z-END concentrations did not dier signicantly in the three types of samples (. In addition, mean capillary TAM, 4HT and Z-END concentrations did not dier signicantly between nurse and patient

Approach and implementation

** Denna text är maskinöversatt ** Using capillary blood sampling for TAM and Z-END yielded similar results to venous blood sampling. Capillary samplings by the nurse and patient were comparable, demonstrating that capillary sampling constitutes a reliable option to measure the concentration of TAM and Z-END.