Category: blood test

Finger prick test for Type1Screen

Finger prick test for Type1Screen

… launching in 2022!

Type1Screen is working hard to accurately identify if the early markers of type 1 diabetes are present (or not) from a finger prick blood spot sample.

Many Type1Screen participants have provided both finger prick test (capillary blood) and needle in the arm (venous blood) samples. Thank you all soooooo much! These samples are helping us to validate a new test or “assay” to accurately determine someone’s risk of type 1 diabetes.

We are still in the process of validating the finger prick assay. This means that we are testing to make sure that the assay reliably finds early markers of type 1 diabetes (islet auto-antibodies – IAs) if there are any IAs in the blood. Equally, we want to make sure that the test does not find IAs when there are no antibodies present in the blood.

The finger prick assay is more complex than the regular assay that uses a venous blood sample. A spot of blood is put on a card, but the sample tends to degrade (breakdown) a little in the post. This makes it more difficult to extract any antibodies from the sample to do the test.

Our recent results comparing both methods tell us that might will miss some children who actually do have islet autoantibodies using the blood spot sample method. We are working hard to make the assay more reliable.

The aim is to be ready to launch the new do-it-yourself in the home assay in 2022. Stay tuned!

T1D risk with one blood test

Type 1 diabetes risk can now be determined with a single blood test

Members of the Australian Type1Screen and International TrialNet Teams have been able to demonstrate that the risk of disease progression can be accurately determined with just a single blood draw. This is in contrast to the rather onerous five blood samples required during an OGTT (oral glucose tolerance test).

This is great news for our at-risk families making Type1Screen and other type 1 diabetes monitoring programs even simpler and more convenient.

The paper is freely downloadable by clicking on this link.

Help us help others at risk of T1D

Support Type1Screen

Help us help others at risk of type 1 diabetes.

Type1Screen’s ultimate goal is to develop cheap and accurate screening for every Australian child to ensure early diagnosis, prevent hospitalisation and develop immune therapies that turn type one into type none.

We are currently working up a blood spot assay that can be collected in the home. We missed out on a grant in 2021 to progress this work and must now reach out directly to our supporters to develop this test.

Could you help us keep helping others by making a tax-deductible donation at:

https://royal-melbourne-hospital.giveeasy.org/ScreenPrevent?

You can help us play a critical role in convincing Government that universal type 1 diabetes screening both improves health and decreases health costs.

THANK YOU!