Diagnostic Performance of a Rapid Antigen Test for the Detection of SARS-CoV-2

Abstract

Aim: The fight against the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has proven crucial, necessitating the need for faster, cheaper, and more reliable detection methods. This study evaluated the performance of a rapid antigen test for the diagnosis of COVID-19 compared with reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) results. Methods: This prospective study included 169 participants. Two simultaneous nasopharyngeal swabs were collected from the participants. Samples were tested for severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) using the Panbio™ COVID-19 Ag rapid test (Abbott Rapid Diagnostics, Jena, Germany) and the Bio-Speedy® SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR kit (Bioeksen, Istanbul, Turkey). Results: Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction results were positive in 90 (53.2%) of 169 patients. The antigen rapid diagnostic test (Ag-RDT) was able to find 66 (73.3%) of the 90 RT-PCR positive samples as positive (p<0.001). In all positive samples by Ag-RDT, RT-PCR was positive. The sensitivity, specificity, negative predictive value, and positive predictive value of the Ag-RDT were 73.3%, 100%, 76.7%, and 100%, respectively. The virus detection performance of the Ag-RDT was significantly more successful in the cycle threshold ≤20 (p<0.001). There was no correlation between PCR positivity and the time since vaccination. Conclusion: The Ag-RDT test can be a good option for early detection of cases and early prevention, as it is quick and easy to implement in every laboratory and even at the point of care.

Keywords

• sars-cov-2
• covid-19
• rapid diagnostic tests
• reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction