Introduction of an electrochemical point‐of‐care assay for quantitative determination of paracetamol in finger‐prick capillary whole blood samples

Abstract

AimsMeasuring venous plasma paracetamol concentrations is time‐ and resource‐consuming. We aimed to validate a novel electrochemical point‐of‐care (POC) assay for rapid paracetamol concentration determinations.MethodsTwelve healthy volunteers received 1 g oral paracetamol, and its concentrations were analysed 10 times over 12 h for capillary whole blood (POC), venous plasma (high‐performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC‐MS/MS)), and dried capillary blood (HPLC‐MS/MS).ResultsAt concentrations >30 μM, POC showed upward biases of 20% (95% limits of agreement [LOA] −22 to 62) and 7% (95% LOA −23 to 38) compared with venous plasma and capillary blood HPLC‐MS/MS, respectively. There were no significant differences between mean concentrations for the paracetamol elimination phase.ConclusionsUpward biases in POC compared with venous plasma HPLC‐MS/MS were likely due to higher paracetamol concentrations in capillary blood than in venous plasma and to faulty individual sensors. The novel POC method is a promising tool for paracetamol concentration analysis.