Balla Mamtha, Merugu Ganesh Prasad, Pokal Mytri, Gayam Vijay, Adapa Sreedhar, Naramala Srikanth, Konala Venu Madhav
Department of Internal Medicine, University of Toledo, Toledo, OH 43606, USA.
Promedica Toledo Hospital, Toledo, OH 43606, USA.
J Clin Med Res. 2020 May;12(5):315-319. doi: 10.14740/jocmr4173. Epub 2020 May 8.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is spreading at a rapid pace throughout the world, and the World Health Organization (WHO) declared it as pandemic on March 11, 2020. We present a case of COVID-19 patient whose reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) initially was false negative and later turned positive, which will stress the importance of a comprehensive approach while evaluating a patient with a differential of COVID-19. The clinicians should be aware of the sensitivity and specificities of these tests which can have grave implications on the patient and community if the diagnosis is missed just based on the laboratory tests due to the highly contagious nature of the disease.
由严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2(SARS-CoV-2)引起的2019冠状病毒病(COVID-19)正在全球迅速蔓延,世界卫生组织(WHO)于2020年3月11日宣布其为大流行病。我们报告一例COVID-19患者,其逆转录聚合酶链反应(RT-PCR)最初为假阴性,后来转为阳性,这将强调在评估疑似COVID-19患者时采用综合方法的重要性。临床医生应了解这些检测的敏感性和特异性,由于该疾病具有高度传染性,如果仅基于实验室检测而漏诊,可能会对患者和社区产生严重影响。