Department of Laboratory Medicine, First Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, China.
Bachelor of Biomedicine, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Lab Med. 2023 Mar 7;54(2):e37-e43. doi: 10.1093/labmed/lmac089.
Coronavirus disease 2019 is a serious threat to human life, and early diagnosis and screening can help control the COVID-19 pandemic. The high sensitivity of reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay is the gold standard for the diagnosis of COVID-19, but there are still some false-negative results. Rapid antigen detection (RAD) is recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a screening method for COVID-19. This review analyzed the characteristics of RDT and found that although the overall sensitivity of RAD was not as high as that of RT-PCR, but RAD was more sensitive in COVID-19 patients within 5 days of the onset of symptoms and in COVID-19 patients with Ct ≤ 25. Therefore, RAD can be used as an adjunct to RT-PCR for screening patients with early COVID-19. Finally, this review provides a combined diagnostic protocol for RAD and nucleic acid testing with the aim of providing a feasible approach for COVID-19 screening.
新型冠状病毒肺炎是对人类生命的严重威胁，早期诊断和筛查有助于控制 COVID-19 大流行。逆转录-聚合酶链反应（RT-PCR）检测的高灵敏度是 COVID-19 诊断的金标准，但仍存在一些假阴性结果。世界卫生组织（WHO）推荐快速抗原检测（RAD）作为 COVID-19 的筛查方法。本综述分析了 RDT 的特点，发现虽然 RAD 的总体灵敏度不如 RT-PCR 高，但在症状出现后 5 天内的 COVID-19 患者和 Ct 值≤25 的 COVID-19 患者中，RAD 的灵敏度更高。因此，RAD 可作为 RT-PCR 的辅助手段用于筛查早期 COVID-19 患者。最后，本综述提出了 RAD 和核酸检测的联合诊断方案，旨在为 COVID-19 筛查提供一种可行的方法。
