Kayaaslan B, Kalem AK, Eser F, Hasanoglu I, Guner R. The Additional Contribution of Second Nasopharyngeal PCR to COVID-19 Diagnosis in Patients with Negative Initial Test.
Infect Dis Now 2020;
51:194-196. [PMID:
33038445 PMCID:
PMC7540190 DOI:
10.1016/j.medmal.2020.10.003]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/06/2020] [Revised: 09/03/2020] [Accepted: 10/01/2020] [Indexed: 11/02/2022]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends performing a second test in patients with a high suspicion of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) whose first PCR test is negative. However, the additional contribution of the second PCR test to the diagnosis is unknown.
PATIENTS AND METHODS
In this study, we aimed to investigate the contribution of second SARS-CoV-2 PCR to diagnosis in patients with a suspicion of COVID-19 whose initial test was negative.
RESULTS
A total of 1449 patients were hospitalized in infectious disease clinics with the suspicion of COVID-19 infection during the study period. We performed the second PCR test (697 nasopharyngeal sample, 5 tracheal aspirate) in 702/766 (91.6%) patients whose first tests were negative and detected as positive in only 6.6% (46) of samples.
CONCLUSIONS
The strategy of using the second nasopharyngeal PCR test to confirm or exclude the diagnosis seems to cause the loss of labor and time, and is costly, because its additional contribution to the first test is very low.
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