2020 · Kathmandu University medical journal · paywalled
Saliva as a Biological Sample for COVID-19 Diagnosis?
Kafle & Sapkota
The finding, in our words
Saliva shows potential as a patient-friendly alternative to nasopharyngeal swabs for COVID-19 diagnosis, with comparable sensitivity and specificity in RT-PCR testing. Its self-collection capability supports decentralised, patient-centric testing strategies during pandemics.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
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.
Marín-Echeverri et al., European journal of clinical microbiology & infectious diseases : official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology (paywalled) · source ↗
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.
Schmetzer et al., Frontiers in public health · source ↗
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.
Allicock et al., BMC infectious diseases · source ↗
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.
Plantamura et al., European journal of clinical microbiology & infectious diseases : official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology · source ↗