Performance of Oropharyngeal Swab Testing Compared With Nasopharyngeal Swab Testing for Diagnosis of Coronavirus Disease 2019—United States, January 2020–February 2020
Monita R. Patel, Darin S. Carroll, Emily N. Ussery, Hilary K. Whitham, Christopher A. Elkins, Judith Noble‐Wang, J. Kamile Rasheed, Xiaoyan Lu, Stephen Lindstrom, Virginia B. Bowen, Jessica L. Waller, Gregory L. Armstrong, Susan I. Gerber, John T. Brooks
Abstract
Among 146 nasopharyngeal (NP) and oropharyngeal (OP) swab pairs collected ≤7 days after illness onset, Real-Time Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction assay for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR) diagnostic results were 95.2% concordant. However, NP swab cycle threshold values were lower (indicating more virus) in 66.7% of concordant-positive pairs, suggesting NP swabs may more accurately detect the amount of SARS-CoV-2.
Topics & Concepts
MedicineSevere acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)CoronavirusVirologyCoronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)Polymerase chain reactionDiagnostic test2019-20 coronavirus outbreakBetacoronavirusInternal medicineDiseaseBiologyVeterinary medicineInfectious disease (medical specialty)OutbreakGeneBiochemistrySARS-CoV-2 detection and testingRespiratory viral infections researchBiosensors and Analytical Detection