학술논문
Real-world deployment of lateral flow SARS-CoV-2 antigen detection in the emergency department to provide rapid, accurate and safe diagnosis of COVID-19
Document Type
article
Author
Source
Infection Prevention in Practice, Vol 3, Iss 4, Pp 100186- (2021)
Subject
Language
English
ISSN
2590-0889
Abstract
Summary: Background: Point-of-care (POC) SARS-CoV-2 lateral-flow antigen detection (LFD) testing in the emergency department (ED) could inform rapid infection control decisions but requirements for safe deployment have not been fully defined Methods: Review of LFD test results, laboratory and POC-RT-PCR results and ED-performance metrics during a two-week high SARS-CoV-2 prevalence period followed by several months of falling prevalence. Aim: Determine whether LFD testing can be safely deployed in ED to provide an effective universal SARS-CoV-2 testing capability. Findings: 93% (345/371) of COVID-19 patients left ED with a virological diagnosis during the 2-week universal LFD evaluation period compared to 77% with targeted POC-RT-PCR deployment alone, on background of approximately one-third having an NHS Track and Trace RT-PCR test-result at presentation. LFD sensitivity and specificity was 70.7% and 99.1% respectively providing a PPV of 97.7% and NPV of 86.4% with disease prevalence of 34.7%. ED discharge-delays (breaches) attributable to COVID-19 fell to 33/3532 (0.94%) compared with the preceding POC-RT-PCR period (107/4114 (2.6%); p=