2024 · European journal of clinical microbiology & infectious diseases : official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology · paywalled
Diagnostic performance, stability, and acceptability of self-collected saliva without additives for SARS-CoV-2 molecular diagnosis
Marín-Echeverri et al.
The finding, in our words
Self-collected saliva without additives showed comparable diagnostic performance to nasopharyngeal swabs for SARS-CoV-2 detection, with 87.6% sensitivity and 99.6% specificity. The sample remained stable for 72 hours and was deemed acceptable by both patients and staff, supporting its use in decentralised, patient-centric screening programmes.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
Saliva shows promise as a patient-friendly alternative to nasopharyngeal swabs for COVID-19 diagnosis, particularly for decentralised testing, though variability in collection and processing methods affects sensitivity. Standardising protocols could improve reliability and support wider use in decentralised diagnostics.
Capillary blood self-sampling achieved 98.3% agreement with venous samples for SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies and 100% for IgA among 60 participants, demonstrating accuracy for vaccine monitoring. Saliva self-collection proved feasible with excellent usability, offering a patient-centric alternative for decentralised immunogenicity assessment.
Generic saliva self-collection devices enabled safe unsupervised home sampling that yielded adequate quantity and quality for SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid gene detection, with stability maintained after temperature cycling to simulate summer and winter shipping. This supports a patient-centric decentralised approach to infectious-disease screening without requiring healthcare professionals.
Saliva self-collection for SARS-CoV-2 detection showed 87.8% sensitivity and 97.1% specificity against nasopharyngeal swabs in 1220 patients, offering a patient-centric alternative with higher acceptability and virtually painless collection, though requiring sample fluidisation. Oral-self sampling swabs were preferred by most patients and also virtually painless, but the 61.1% sensitivity was too low for reliable decentralised diagnostics.
Self-collected saline gargle samples detected SARS-CoV-2 with 98 per cent sensitivity compared with nasopharyngeal swabs, outperforming saliva at 79 per cent, and viral RNA remained stable for two days at room temperature. Gargle samples also received the highest acceptability scores among participants aged 4 to 71 years, supporting their use as a swab-independent alternative for outpatient and paediatric COVID-19 diagnosis.