title: Finger-prick blood samples can be used interchangeably with venous samples for CD4 cell counting indicating their potential for use in CD4 rapid tests.
abstract: The objective of this study was to investigate the utility of finger-prick blood samples for CD4 cell counting. We estimated agreement between CD4 cell counts in paired finger-prick and venous samples from 110 HIV-infected adults from Malawi. Bias was 6.6 cells/microl (limits of agreement -50.7 and 63.7 cells/microl) for absolute counts and 0.71% (limits of agreement -2.07 and 3.48%) for %CD4/lymphocyte suggesting that finger-prick blood samples can be used interchangeably with venous samples for CD4 cell counting.
authors.affiliation: Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme, College of Medicine, University of Malawi, Blantyre, Malawi.
authors.forename: Calman A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: MacLennan
authors.forename: Joep J G
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: van Oosterhout
authors.forename: Sarah A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: White
authors.forename: Mark T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Drayson
authors.forename: Eduard E
authors.initials: EE
authors.lastname: Zijlstra
authors.forename: Malcolm E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Molyneux
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001800:Blood Specimen Collection / Q000379:methods*; D018791:CD4 Lymphocyte Count; D005260:Female; D005385:Fingers / Q000098:blood supply; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D018655:Lymphocyte Count; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015203:Reproducibility of Results