An Assessment of the AdenoPlus Point-of-Care Test for Diagnosing Adenoviral Conjunctivitis and Its Effect on Antibiotic Stewardship

Abstract

Objective: To determine the sensitivity and specificity of the AdenoPlus test compared with real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and to determine whether there was a reduction in antibiotic prescriptions with the use of AdenoPlus compared with the previous year. Patients and Methods: A total of 125 patients with suspected infectious conjunctivitis were accrued from June 4, 2015, through September 27, 2015. Forty-six participants from the prospective cohort completed both AdenoPlus and PCR testing. Two hundred fifty age-matched individuals were in the retrospective cohort. Results: There was a significant reduction in the percentage of patients who received an antibiotic ophthalmic prescription in the prospective cohort vs the retrospective cohort (32% vs 45%; χ2 P=.01). AdenoPlus test sensitivity was 50% (5 of 10) and specificity was 92% (33 of 36) compared with real-time PCR testing. Conclusion: The AdenoPlus test has high specificity for diagnosing adenoviral conjunctivitis but lower sensitivity than has been previously published. These data suggest that negative AdenoPlus results should be confirmed by real-time PCR owing to the low overall sensitivity of AdenoPlus observed.