Performance of Immunoglobulin G Serology on Finger Prick Capillary Dried Blood Spot Samples to Detect a SARS-CoV-2 Antibody Response

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Abstract

Dried blood spot samples have comparable diagnostic accuracy to serum collected by venipuncture when tested by an electrochemiluminescent assay for antibodies and should be considered to reliably detect seropositivity following SARS-CoV-2 infection and/or vaccination.

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  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2021.07.29.21261156: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsIRB: The University of British Columbia Clinical Research Ethics Board provided ethical review and approval for studies from which participants’ specimens were cross-sectionally sampled and tested (H20-02184, H20-02402, H20-01421 and H20-01886).
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot 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:
    An important limitation of SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence studies in populations with low vaccine coverage is the difference in antibody signals between individuals who have recovered from asymptomatic and symptomatic infection15. The distribution of serological signals between recovered asymptomatic and negative cases are more likely to overlap than when comparing negative to recovered symptomatic, nucleic acid amplification test confirmed cases. Low serological signal should not be a limitation in populations with high vaccine coverage, as SARS-CoV-2 vaccination has been experimentally found to elicit a stronger humoral immune response than natural infection16. In summary, measuring SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity at the population level presents unique challenges, which warrant investigation and consideration of alternative methodologies. We show robust diagnostic accuracy of DBS samples when tested for anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG using an MSD assay, and model the predictive value of DBS-MSD testing in a theoretical population with fifteen, forty-five and seventy-five percent COVID-19 vaccine coverage11. DBS tests have comparable specificity and lower sensitivity to those conducted on serum, due to low analyte volume and the need for additional sample processing. The PPV of DBS-MSD testing increases in response to high seroprevalence, making it possible to accurately identify individuals who have a humoral immune response. Follow-up, reflex testing may be required to confirm true negatives. ...

    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.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.


    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.