• J Coll Physicians Surg Pak · Sep 2023

    Observational Study

    Comparison of Rapid Antigen Detection Test with Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction in Highly Suspected COVID-19 Patients.

    • Muhammad Abdur Rahman Afridi, Zafar Ali, and Naveed Iqbal.
    • Department of Medicine, Lady Reading Hospital, Medical Teaching Institution, Peshawar, Pakistan.
    • J Coll Physicians Surg Pak. 2023 Sep 1; 33 (9): 105810611058-1061.

    ObjectiveTo compare Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) with Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) in highly suspected COVID-19 patients and to determine its diagnostic parameters.Study DesignHospital-based, descriptive/observational study. Place and Duration of the Study: Department of Medicine/COVID Complex, Medical Teaching Institution/Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, from October 2021 to April 2022.MethodologyA total of 300 highly suspected cases of COVID-19 of either gender admitted in the COVID Complex of the hospital, were included. Data from the patients, including RAT and RT-PCR for COVID-19, were collected retrospectively. RT-PCR was used as the reference test and compared with RAT. Diagnostic statistics of RAT, with their respective 95% confidence intervals were calculated for RAT in diagnosing COVID-19, with significance at p ≤0.05.ResultsAmong the 300 patients, 137 (45.7%) were males and 163 (54.3%) were females. The mean age was 56.80 ± 13.72 years. On screening, 138 (46%) patients tested positive and 162 (54%) were negative by RAT; whereas 213 (71%) tested positive and 87 (29%) were negative on RT-PCR. The sensitivity and specificity of RAT were 54.5% (95% CI: 47.52%-61.28%) and 74.7% (95% CI: 64.25%-83.42%), respectively. Positive predicted value was 84.1% (95% CI: 78.26%-88.53%) and negative predictive value was 40.1% (95% CI: 35.63%-44.79%). The positive likelihood ratio was 2.15 (95% CI: 1.47-3.15). The negative likelihood-ratio was 0.61(95% CI: 0.50-0.74). The overall accuracy was 60.33% (95% CI: 54.55%-65.91%).ConclusionThere was a low sensitivity and specificity of the RAT for COVID-19, with an overall accuracy of 60.33%, compared with RT-PCR.Key WordsCOVID-19, Rapid Antigen Test, Sensitivity, Specificity, RT-PCR.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…