People can check themselves about as precisely at dwelling with speedy antigen coronavirus exams as well being care professionals utilizing the identical exams, in line with a Johns Hopkins Medicine-led examine revealed on-line this week.
In the examine, which concerned practically 1,000 sufferers seen on the Baltimore Convention Center Field Hospital throughout a five-month interval in 2022, researchers discovered that self-administered COVID exams rivaled these administered by clinicians of their capability to find out correct constructive and detrimental outcomes.
Self-administered exams had been 83.9% correct in figuring out constructive outcomes — in comparison with 88.2% for clinician-administered exams — and 99.8% correct in figuring out detrimental outcomes, in comparison with 99.6%.
“We believe this is an important finding because it suggests physicians can feel confident prescribing treatment based on patient-reported, self-administered tests with positive results,” examine senior writer Dr. Zishan Siddiqui stated in a Johns Hopkins information launch on Tuesday. Siddiqui is an assistant professor of drugs on the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
The examine was posted on-line Tuesday within the American Society for Microbiology journal Microbiology Spectrum.
While polymerase chase response, or PCR, COVID exams are extra correct that speedy antigen exams, they should be administered by a talented laboratory technician, require particular tools and take as much as an hour or extra to course of.
Testing on a large scale can solely be performed at a big, centralized testing facility, whereas speedy exams may be administered at dwelling by anybody and supply ends in about quarter-hour.
For the examine, Johns Hopkins researchers labored with researchers on the University of Maryland School of Medicine and 5 different organizations. Together, they enrolled 953 contributors between Feb. 12 and July 15, 2022, on the State Center complicated in Midtown Baltimore.
The momentary testing website closed final yr after opening in April 2020 to deal with COVID sufferers throughout the pandemic and assist relieve an anticipated surge that would overwhelm space hospitals. It additionally supplied free COVID exams and, finally, vaccinations.
Researchers carried out each a speedy and PCR check on examine contributors, and had them give themselves a speedy check and report their very own outcomes. The participant pool was 60.6% feminine, 58.6% white and 98.2% English-speaking, and their median age was 34, in line with the Hopkins information launch.
In an earlier Hopkins-led examine on the Baltimore Convention Center Field Hospital, researchers demonstrated that speedy COVID exams had comparable accuracy to PCR exams.
“The first study suggested that a health care system can provide an equitable response to COVID-19, with [rapid antigen tests] making it possible to test all socioeconomic levels of a large population quickly and repeatedly,” Siddiqui stated within the launch.
“The new study bolsters that belief by showing comparable accuracy between self- and physician-performed [rapid antigen tests] and, therefore, helping build clinician confidence in patient-reported results from at-home tests.”
The speedy antigen check used within the examine was the BinaxNOW COVID check manufactured by Abbott and provided without charge by the Maryland Department of Health.
Future research “should look at an array of brands across a broader demographic spectrum so that our results can hopefully be confirmed and amplified,” stated Mary Jane Vaeth, the examine’s lead writer, within the Hopkins information launch. Vaeth was a scientific assistant on the now-closed area hospital.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”