COVID-19 Preprocedural Testing: What About the False Positives?
Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg
; 165(1): 3-4, 2021 07.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1072877
ABSTRACT
In the COVID-19 era, preprocedural patients are almost uniformly screened for symptoms, asked to quarantine preoperatively, and then undergo a test of uncertain validity with very low pretest probability. A small percentage of these tests return positive. As a result, surgical procedures are delayed and patients are required to quarantine. Are these asymptomatic patients truly positive for COVID-19? What are the impacts of these test results on the patient and the health care system? In the following commentary, we review how the uncertain validity of reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction testing combined with a low-prevalence population predisposes for false-positive results. As a mitigation strategy, we ask that readers refocus on the fundamental principal of diagnostic testing pretest probability.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Mass Screening
/
Elective Surgical Procedures
/
COVID-19 Testing
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Diagnostic study
/
Observational study
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg
Journal subject:
Otolaryngology
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
0194599821995109
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