ABSTRACT
Real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) is the most sensitive and specific assay and, therefore, is the "gold standard" diagnostic method for the diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection. The aim of this study was to compare and analyze the detection performance of three different commercially available SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid detection kits: Sansure Biotech, GeneFinderTM, and TaqPathTM on 354 randomly selected samples from hospitalized COVID-19 patients. All PCR reactions were performed using the same RNA isolates and one real-time PCR machine. The final result of the three evaluated kits was not statistically different (p = 0.107), and also had a strong positive association and high Cohen's κ coefficient. In contrast, the average Ct values that refer to the ORF1ab and N gene amplification were significantly different (p < 0.001 and p < 0.001, respectively), with the lowest obtained by the TaqPathTM for the ORF1ab and by the Sansure Biotech for the N gene. The results show a high similarity in the analytical sensitivities for SARS-CoV-2 detection, which indicates that the diagnostic accuracy of the three assays is comparable. However, the SanSure Biotech kit showed a bit better diagnostic performance. Our findings suggest that the imperative for improvement should address the determination of cut-off Ct values and rapid modification of the primer sets along with the appearance of new variants.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 Nucleic Acid Testing/methods , COVID-19/virology , Reagent Kits, Diagnostic , Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction/methods , SARS-CoV-2/isolation & purification , COVID-19/diagnosis , COVID-19/epidemiology , Cross-Sectional Studies , Humans , RNA, Viral/genetics , RNA, Viral/isolation & purification , SARS-CoV-2/genetics , Sensitivity and Specificity , Serbia/epidemiologyABSTRACT
The serological testing of anti-SARS-CoV-2 immunoglobulin G (IgG) and/or IgM is widely used in the diagnosis of COVID-19. However, its diagnostic efficacy remains unclear. In this study, we searched for diagnostic studies from the Web of Science, PubMed, Embase, CNKI, and Wanfang databases to calculate the pooled diagnostic accuracy measures using bivariate random-effects model meta-analysis. As a result, 22 from a total of 1613 articles, including 2282 patients with SARS-CoV-2 and 1485 healthy persons or patients without SARS-CoV-2, were selected for a meta-analysis. Pooled sensitivity, specificity, and area under curve of the summary receiver operator curve (SROC) were: (a) 0.85 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.79-0.90), 0.99 (95% CI: 0.98-1.00), and 0.99 (95% CI: 0.97-0.99) for anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG and (b) 0.74 (95% CI: 0.65-0.81), 0.99 (95% CI: 0.97-1.00), and 0.95 (95% CI: 0.93-0.97) for IgM. A subgroup analysis among detection methods indicated the sensitivity of IgG and IgM using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay were slightly lower than those using gold immunochromatography assay (GICA) and chemiluminescence immunoassay (P > .05). These results showed that the detection of anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG and IgM had high diagnostic efficiency to assist the diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection. And, GICA might be used as the preferred method for its accuracy and simplicity.
Subject(s)
Antibodies, Viral/blood , COVID-19 Serological Testing/methods , COVID-19/diagnosis , Immunoglobulin G/blood , Immunoglobulin M/blood , COVID-19/immunology , Chromatography, Affinity , Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay , Humans , Luminescent Measurements , Reproducibility of Results , Sensitivity and SpecificityABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: To compare the diagnostic efficacy between two different real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test kits for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) nucleic acid detection and provide references for laboratories. METHODS: Throat swab samples from 18 hospitalized patients were clinically diagnosed with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and 100 hospitalized patients without COVID-19 were collected. SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid was detected in throat swab samples with RT-PCR test kits from Sansure Biotech Inc (Hunan, China) and Shanghai BioGerm Medical Biotechnology Co., Ltd.(Shanghai, China). The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), and kappa value were analyzed, and three parallel tests were performed with three weakly positive samples. RESULTS: The sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV, and kappa value of the Sansure PCR kit were 0.833, 1.000, 1.000, 0.971, and 0.894, respectively, and the sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV, and kappa value of the BioGerm PCR kit were 0.944, 1.000, 1.000, 0.990, and 0.966, respectively. For the three parallel tests, the coefficient of variation value of the BioGerm PCR kit in all three samples was the smallest for both the ORF1ab and N gene. CONCLUSION: The detection efficacy of the BioGerm PCR kit for SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid detection was relatively higher than that of the Sansure PCR kit.