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The following is a summary of “Evaluation of the feasibility and efficacy of point-of-care antibody tests for biomarker guided management of COVID-19,” published in the September 2024 issue of Infectious Disease by Reilly et al.
The management of patients with COVID-19 can be enhanced by Biomarker guided therapy. The antibody tests are predictive of the disease. However, the clinical utility of point-of-care (POC) antibody testing in guiding patient management remains unclear.
Researchers conducted a retrospective study to investigate how POC antibody tests could guide patient management in patients with COVID-19.
They assessed 2 POC tests: LumiraDX and RightSign. Ease-of-use data and Blood were collected for testing using antibody assays (GenScript cPass). A case-control study estimated whether POC tests conducted on stored specimens predicted time to support recovery, mortality, and safety outcomes.
The results showed that both POC tests indicated moderate agreement with the GenScript assay (both agreeing with 89% of antibody determinations). They even differed from the GenScript assay, treating it as the gold standard. The LumiraDX assay and the RightSign assay had 99.5% sensitivity and 89.5% sensitivity with specificity of 58.1% and 84.0%, respectively, while the LumiraDX assay gave indeterminate results and was interlinked with clinical outcomes.
They concluded that both POC tests showed moderate deviation from the GenScript assay and that the RightSign test was easier to use and more effective at detecting those lacking antibodies than the LumiraDX test.
Source: academic.oup.com/jid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/infdis/jiae452/7756370
