TY - JOUR
T1 - Digital PCR for high sensitivity viral detection in false-negative SARS-CoV-2 patients
AU - Poggio, Paolo
AU - Songia, Paola
AU - Vavassori, Chiara
AU - Ricci, Veronica
AU - Banfi, Cristina
AU - Barbieri, Silvia Stella
AU - Garoffolo, Gloria
AU - Myasoedova, Veronika A.
AU - Piacentini, Luca
AU - Raucci, Angela
AU - Scopece, Alessandro
AU - Sommariva, Elena
AU - Vinci, Maria Cristina
AU - Carcione, Davide
AU - Biondi, Maria Luisa
AU - Mancini, Maria Elisabetta
AU - Formenti, Alberto
AU - Andreini, Daniele
AU - Assanelli, Emilio M.
AU - Agostoni, Piergiuseppe
AU - Camera, Marina
AU - Colombo, Gualtiero I.
AU - Pesce, Maurizio
N1 - Funding Information:
The present research was in part funded from Institutional resources (Ricerca 5 per mille, Italian Ministery of Health) and in part from a grant issued to MP by Regione Lombardia (POR FESR 2014–2020-LINEA 2A COVID-grant no. 1850333).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).
PY - 2021/12
Y1 - 2021/12
N2 - Patients requiring diagnostic testing for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are routinely assessed by reverse-transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) amplification of Sars-CoV-2 virus RNA extracted from oro/nasopharyngeal swabs. Despite the good specificity of the assays certified for SARS-CoV-2 molecular detection, and a theoretical sensitivity of few viral gene copies per reaction, a relatively high rate of false negatives continues to be reported. This is an important challenge in the management of patients on hospital admission and for correct monitoring of the infectivity after the acute phase. In the present report, we show that the use of digital PCR, a high sensitivity method to detect low amplicon numbers, allowed us to correctly detecting infection in swab material in a significant number of false negatives. We show that the implementation of digital PCR methods in the diagnostic assessment of COVID-19 could resolve, at least in part, this timely issue.
AB - Patients requiring diagnostic testing for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are routinely assessed by reverse-transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) amplification of Sars-CoV-2 virus RNA extracted from oro/nasopharyngeal swabs. Despite the good specificity of the assays certified for SARS-CoV-2 molecular detection, and a theoretical sensitivity of few viral gene copies per reaction, a relatively high rate of false negatives continues to be reported. This is an important challenge in the management of patients on hospital admission and for correct monitoring of the infectivity after the acute phase. In the present report, we show that the use of digital PCR, a high sensitivity method to detect low amplicon numbers, allowed us to correctly detecting infection in swab material in a significant number of false negatives. We show that the implementation of digital PCR methods in the diagnostic assessment of COVID-19 could resolve, at least in part, this timely issue.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41598-021-83723-x
DO - 10.1038/s41598-021-83723-x
M3 - Article
C2 - 33619321
AN - SCOPUS:85101287869
SN - 2045-2322
VL - 11
JO - Scientific Reports
JF - Scientific Reports
IS - 1
M1 - 4310
ER -