Performance of anterior nares and tongue swabs for nucleic acid, Nucleocapsid, and Spike antigen testing for detecting SARS-CoV-2 against nasopharyngeal PCR and viral culture.
Int J Infect Dis
; 117: 287-294, 2022 Apr.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1670581
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES:
This study assesses and compares the performance of different swab types and specimen collection sites for SARS-CoV-2 testing, to reference standard real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and viral culture.METHODS:
Symptomatic adults with COVID-19 who visited routine COVID-19 testing sites used spun polyester and FLOQSwabs to self-collect specimens from the anterior nares and tongue. We evaluated the self-collected specimen from anterior nares and tongue swabs for the nucleocapsid (N) or spike (S) antigen of SARS-CoV-2 by RT-PCR and then compared these results with results from RT-PCR and viral cultures from nurse-collected nasopharyngeal swabs.RESULTS:
Diagnostic sensitivity was highest for RT-PCR testing conducted using specimens from the anterior nares collected on FLOQSwabs (84%; 95% CI 68-94%) and spun polyester swabs (82%; 95% CI 66-92%), compared to RT-PCR tests conducted using specimens from nasopharyngeal swabs. Relative to viral culture from nasopharyngeal swabs, diagnostic sensitivities were higher for RT-PCR and antigen testing of anterior nares swabs (91-100%) than that of tongue swabs (18-81%). Antigen testing of anterior nares swabs had higher sensitivities against viral culture (91%) than against nasopharyngeal RT-PCR (38-70%). All investigational tests had high specificity compared with nasopharyngeal RT-PCR. Spun polyester swabs are equally effective as FLOQSwabs for anterior nasal RT-PCR testing.CONCLUSIONS:
We found that anterior nares specimens were more sensitive than tongue swab specimens or antigen testing for detecting SARS-CoV-2 by RT-PCR. Thus, self-collected anterior nares specimens may represent an alternative method for diagnostic SARS-CoV-2 testing in some settings.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Nucleic Acids
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Diagnostic study
/
Experimental Studies
Limits:
Adult
/
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Int J Infect Dis
Journal subject:
Communicable Diseases
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
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