Diagnostic Accuracy of LAMP Versus PCR over the Course of SARS-CoV-2 Infection

Overview

Journal Int J Infect Dis

Publisher Elsevier

Specialty Infectious Diseases

Date 2021 Apr 16

PMID 33862213

Citations 40

Authors

Masato Inaba

Yuki Higashimoto

Yoko Toyama

Tomoya Horiguchi

Masaya Hibino

Mitsunaga Iwata

Kazuyoshi Imaizumi

Yohei Doi

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Objective: Reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) has been validated to diagnose several viral infections. However, its diagnostic accuracy in detecting SARS-CoV-2 in real-life clinical settings remains unclear. This study aimed to determine the diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of RT-LAMP compared to reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) over the disease course of COVID-19.

Methods: A total of 124 nasopharyngeal swab samples obtained from 24 COVID-19 patients were tested by RT-LAMP and RT-qPCR. Sensitivities and specificities of RT-LAMP compared with RT-qPCR were analyzed as a function of time from onset.

Results: Up to the 9th day after onset, the RT-LAMP had a positivity of 92.8%, and the sensitivity and specificity compared with RT-qPCR was 100%. However, after the 10th day after onset, the positivity of RT-LAMP decreased to less than 25%, and the concordance of positivity between the two methods was below 60%. The limit of detection of RT-LAMP was 6.7 copies/reaction.

Conclusions: Until the 9th day after the onset of symptoms, RT-LAMP had the same diagnostic accuracy as RT-qPCR. These findings suggest that RT-LAMP can be used as a diagnostic tool for COVID-19 as an alternative to RT-qPCR in the acute symptomatic phase of COVID-19.

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