Relative Sensitivity of Saliva and Upper Airway Swabs for Initial Detection of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 in Ambulatory Patients

Saliva has been proposed as an alternative to upper airway swabs when testing for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. Although some studies have suggested higher viral loads and clinical sensitivity when testing saliva, studies have been relatively small and have given rise to contradictory results. To better understand the relative performance characteristics of saliva and upper airway samples, I performed a rapid systematic review (registered on PROSPERO as CRD42020205035), focusing on studies that included at least 20 subjects who provided diagnostic saliva and upper airway samples on the same day, which were tested by nucleic acid amplification methods and for which a confusion matrix could be constructed for based on a composite reference standard.

Source: Journal of Molecular Diagnostics - December 31, 2020 Category: Pathology Authors: Timothy J. O'Leary Tags: Mini review Source Type: research