Scent dog identification of SARS-CoV-2 infections, similar across different body fluids
This article has been Reviewed by the following groups
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- Evaluated articles (ScreenIT)
- Evaluated articles (Rapid Reviews Infectious Diseases)
Abstract
Background
The main strategy to contain the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic remains to implement a comprehensive testing, tracing and quarantining strategy until vaccination of the population is adequate.
Methods
Ten dogs were trained to detect SARS-CoV-2 infections in beta-propiolactone inactivated saliva samples. The subsequent cognitive transfer performance for the recognition of non-inactivated samples were tested on saliva, urine, and sweat in a randomised, double-blind controlled study.
Results
Dogs were tested on a total of 5242 randomised sample presentations. Dogs detected non-inactivated saliva samples with a diagnostic sensitivity of 84% and specificity of 95%. In a subsequent experiment to compare the scent recognition between the three non-inactivated body fluids, diagnostic sensitivity and specificity were 95% and 98% for urine, 91% and 94% for sweat, 82%, and 96% for saliva respectively.
Conclusions
The scent cognitive transfer performance between inactivated and non-inactivated samples as well as between different sample materials indicates that global, specific SARS-CoV-2-associated volatile compounds are released across different body secretions, independently from the patient’s symptoms.
Funding
The project was funded as a special research project of the German Armed Forces. The funding source DZIF-Fasttrack 1.921 provided us with means for biosampling.
Article activity feed
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Catherine Reeve
Review 2: "Scent dog identification of SARS-CoV-2 infections, similar across different body fluids"
Reviewers find great potential in this preprint on the use of scent dogs to identify SARS-CoV2 infections, however they raise a number of concerns about the clarity and conditions of the experimental methods used.
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Albertini Mariangela, Patrizia Piotti
Review 1: "Scent dog identification of SARS-CoV-2 infections, similar across different body fluids"
Reviewers find great potential in this preprint on the use of scent dogs to identify SARS-CoV2 infections, however they raise a number of concerns about the clarity and conditions of the experimental methods used.
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Strength of evidence
Reviewers: Albertini Mariangela, Patrizia Piotti (University of Milan) | 📒📒📒◻️◻️
Catherine Reeve (Queen's University Belfast) | 📗📗📗📗◻️ -
SciScore for 10.1101/2021.03.05.434038: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement Consent: Written consent from all participants were collected before sample collection.
IRB: The local Ethics Committees of Hannover Medical School (MHH) and the Hamburg Medical Association (for the University Medical-Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE)) approved the study (ethic consent number 9042_BO_K_2020 and PV7298, respectively).Randomization In each trial, the device’s software randomly assigned the target scent’s position between the seven different positions without the dog or its handler knowing which hole was next positive. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable Six female and four male dogs were included. Table 2: Resources
SciScore for 10.1101/2021.03.05.434038: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement Consent: Written consent from all participants were collected before sample collection.
IRB: The local Ethics Committees of Hannover Medical School (MHH) and the Hamburg Medical Association (for the University Medical-Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE)) approved the study (ethic consent number 9042_BO_K_2020 and PV7298, respectively).Randomization In each trial, the device’s software randomly assigned the target scent’s position between the seven different positions without the dog or its handler knowing which hole was next positive. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable Six female and four male dogs were included. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources All calculations were done with the Prism 9 software from GraphPad (La Jolla, CA, USA). GraphPadsuggested: (GraphPad Prism, RRID:SCR_002798)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:Future studies are important to address some remaining limitations such as the low number of distractor samples with specified pathogens (differentiation to other lung diseases or pathogens such as infections with other seasonal respiratory viruses, like influenza viruses, rhinoviruses, respiratory syncytial virus, human metapneumovirus, adenovirus, and coronaviruses other than SARS-CoV-2). This was however not within the scope of the current study. The laboratory identification of the specific VOC pattern is still in its infancy, but some current studies under review and also a peer-reviewed one showed SARS-CoV-2 specific biomarkers in breath samples detectable by gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometry27,28, which also support our hypothesis. Scent dogs should be considered an addition to the gold standard RT-PCR, for rapid testing in situations where great numbers of people from different origins come together. The accuracies may be increased by extending the training phase and selecting individual dogs with better scent detection accuracy. As with any testing scenario, human and in this case dog daily performance could vary. This also applies to the most accurate diagnostic performance of the gold standard RT-PCR that can only be achieved under ideal conditions, which does not always reflects the real life situation. Peer reviewed and preliminary systematic reviews indicate PCR sensitivities ranging from 71 to 100%29,30 implying false negative results ranging up to 2...
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.
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