«ALMASS Neo» assay solutions

«AL­MASS Neo» ana­lyt­ic­al solu­tions are in­ten­ded for ex­trac­tion of tar­get ana­lytes from new­borns’ peri­pher­al blood samples on stand­ard pa­per test blanks and trans­fer­ring them to the tan­dem mass spec­tro­metry sys­tem. «AL­MASS Neo» ana­lyt­ic­al solu­tions are in­ten­ded to be used to­geth­er with the «AL­MASS Neo» re­agent kit for de­term­in­a­tion of con­gen­it­al meta­bol­ic dis­eases in new­borns by HPLC-MS/MS meth­od.

Neonat­al screen­ing is the new­born screen­ing pro­gram for ge­net­ic dis­orders. Hered­it­ary meta­bol­ic dis­eases in­volve the quant­it­at­ive ana­lys­is of a num­ber of mark­ers. The pro­ced­ure be­gins in the ma­ter­n­ity hos­pit­al, where five drops of blood are drawn from the new­born, ap­ply­ing them to a spe­ci­al card, which is then dried. This pro­duces a sample – a Dried Blood Spot – which will be sent for fur­th­er ana­lys­is. Ab­nor­mal mark­er ana­lytes will in­dic­ate meta­bol­ic dis­orders and al­low the iden­ti­fic­a­tion of po­ten­tially sick new­borns. The pan­el of ana­lytes is rep­res­en­ted by amino acids and acyl­car­n­it­ines, with ad­en­osine also ad­ded to the ex­pan­ded­pan­el.

Screen­ing is not lit­erally an «as­say by which a dia­gnos­is can be made quickly and un­am­bigu­ously». Fur­th­er ex­am­in­a­tions are per­formed by oth­er spe­ci­al­ists, ad­di­tion­al tests are pre­scribed, etc.