Sensitivity of Nasopharyngeal Swabs and Saliva for the Detection of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2
This article has been Reviewed by the following groups
Listed in
- Evaluated articles (ScreenIT)
Abstract
We enrolled 91 consecutive inpatients with COVID-19 at 6 hospitals in Toronto, Canada, and tested 1 nasopharyngeal swab/saliva sample pair from each patient using real-time RT-PCR for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. Sensitivity was 89% for nasopharyngeal swabs and 72% for saliva (P = .02). Difference in sensitivity was greatest for sample pairs collected later in illness.
Article activity feed
-
-
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.01.20081026: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement IRB: This study was approved by the Research Ethics Board of Sinai Health System (#02-0118-U). Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:There are several limitations to this analysis. As these patients were originally diagnosed using NP swabs, it is possible that there is a bias …
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.01.20081026: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement IRB: This study was approved by the Research Ethics Board of Sinai Health System (#02-0118-U). Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:There are several limitations to this analysis. As these patients were originally diagnosed using NP swabs, it is possible that there is a bias towards subsequent NP swabs versus other specimens being positive. We used a single detection system (Seegene), and other platforms may have yielded different results. We simply asked patients to spit into a specimen container; it is unclear whether other methods, such as throat washing [11], would have improved yield. Our data suggest that saliva may be reasonably substituted for NP swabs in hospitalized patients when NP swabs are in short supply or patients cannot tolerate them, particularly early in illness when viral concentrations in the upper respiratory tract may be higher. However, this should be undertaken with the understanding that a single specimen is not 100% sensitive, and an NP swab should be used as a second specimen in patients for whom there is a high index of clinical suspicion and saliva is negative. More data are needed to determine whether saliva and NP swabs are truly equivalent early in illness, to assess testing on different platforms, and to assess the sensitivity of different specimen types in asymptomatic patients or those whose illness does not require hospitalization.
Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
-
