"Dr. Zev Williams, the chief of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, clearly remembers a particular patient who walked into his clinic. She was only 16 years old, but had chosen to freeze her eggs before undergoing fertility-threatening treatment for severe sickle cell disease. Her condition had left her blood vessels with extensive scarring, which made the frequent blood draws required for fertility preservation highly difficult."
"That is, until May 2023, when Columbia Fertility began offering patients the option to use YourBio Health's TAP device, a needle-free blood collection system. TAP sticks to the upper arm, then uses a vacuum and eyelash-thin microneedles to coax blood from the capillaries. It's so simple and pain-free, Williams said, that patients can use the device at home and then send in their sample via Uber. (Williams was not involved in developing the TAP device, but is now part of the company's medical advisory board.)"
A needle-free device called TAP can collect blood painlessly using a vacuum and eyelash-thin microneedles that stick to the upper arm and draw capillary blood. Columbia Fertility began offering TAP in May 2023, enabling some patients to self-collect samples at home and ship them for analysis. A 16-year-old patient with sickle cell–related vascular scarring found TAP transformed her blood-draw experience from extremely difficult to easy. Many patients report strong emotional relief after switching to needle-free collection. Needle-free tests can increase comfort and access, though some alternatives face challenges with sample size and analytic accuracy.
Read at Business Insider
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]