Sensitivity of midturbinate versus nasopharyngeal swabs for the detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).
Alainna J JamalMohammad MozafarihashjinEric CoomesSofia Anceva-SamiShiva BaratiGloria CrowlAmna FaheemLubna FarooqiChristopher E KandelSaman KhanAngel X LiHenna MistryAimee PatersonSimon PlenderleithKarren ProstSusan PoutanenJeff PowisRenée SchryerMaureen TaylorLily YipXi Zoe ZhongAllison J McGeerSamira Mubarekanull nullPublished in: Infection control and hospital epidemiology (2020)
To compare sensitivity of specimens for COVID-19 diagnosis, we tested 151 nasopharyngeal/midturbinate swab pairs from 117 COVID-19 inpatients using reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Sensitivity was 94% for nasopharyngeal and 75% for midturbinate swabs (P = .0001). In 88 nasopharyngeal/midturbinate pairs with matched saliva, sensitivity was 86% for nasopharyngeal swabs and 88% for combined midturbinate swabs/saliva.