Article
Infectious Diseases
Adrien Calame, Lena Mazza, Adriana Renzoni, Laurent Kaiser, Manuel Schibler
Summary: During the COVID-19 crisis, a cell culture medium was validated as a viral transport medium, with oropharyngeal swab and nasal wash specimens showing comparable clinical and analytical sensitivity to nasopharyngeal swabs for SARS-CoV-2 detection. This suggests that OP swabs and NW specimens could serve as suitable alternatives to NPS in the context of a shortage.
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF CLINICAL MICROBIOLOGY & INFECTIOUS DISEASES
(2021)
Article
Immunology
Geoffrey A. Behrens, Michael Brehm, Rita Gross, Jana Heider, Jurgen Sauter, Daniel M. Baier, Tatjana Wehde, Santina Castriciano, Alexander H. Schmidt, Vinzenz Lange
Summary: This study presents a method to determine cytomegalovirus immunoglobulin G (CMV IgG) serostatus from dried buccal swab samples with high specificity (98.6%) and sensitivity (99.1%). Analysis of 1.2 million samples resulted in age- and sex-stratified CMV prevalence statistics for Germany, Poland, United Kingdom, and Chile. Reassessment of CMV status in 6518 donors using conventional blood samples showed high specificity (96.9%) and sensitivity (97.4%).
JOURNAL OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES
(2021)
Article
Infectious Diseases
Phyu M. Thwe, Ping Ren
Summary: The study found a high overall agreement of 96% between lower respiratory tract specimens and nasopharyngeal swabs for SARS-CoV-2 detection, suggesting that lower respiratory tract specimens could be a viable option for certain patient populations. This has important implications for patients with productive cough or those receiving invasive mechanical ventilation.
DIAGNOSTIC MICROBIOLOGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASE
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Jiun-Hao Yu, Sung-huai Hsieh, Chieh-Hsiao Chen, Wen-Kuan Huang
Summary: This study aimed to validate the effectiveness and safety of robot-assisted nasopharyngeal sampling. The results showed that the robot group had good quality specimens with a higher collection time compared to the manual group. The pain levels were lower in the robot group, but not statistically significant. Both groups had comparable psychological stress. Therefore, this technology can reduce the stress of healthcare providers and be useful in situations with droplettransmitted infectious diseases.
Article
Immunology
Pablo J. Bertrand, Yaneisi Vazquez, Andrea A. Beckhaus, Liliana A. Gonzalez, Ana Maria Contreras, Marcela Ferres, Oslando Padilla, Claudia A. Riedel, Alexis M. Kalergis, Susan M. Bueno
Summary: The study suggests that IL-8 and IL-33 are significantly increased in lower respiratory tract infections caused by RSV and could be potential biomarkers for clinical severity in children with LRTIs.
CLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL IMMUNOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Biochemical Research Methods
Surbhi Bihani, Aryan Gupta, Subina Mehta, Andrew T. Rajczewski, James Johnson, Dhanush Borishetty, Timothy J. Griffin, Sanjeeva Srivastava, Pratik D. Jagtap
Summary: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the exploration of the microbiome is necessary due to impaired immunity and cases of secondary infections. This study used mass spectrometry-based data to investigate the metaproteome of nasopharyngeal swab samples from COVID-19 patients. Through a bioinformatics workflow, microbial peptides belonging to opportunistic pathogens were detected, and upregulated microbial proteins were found in severe patients. Clinical metaproteomics based on mass spectrometry can be a powerful tool for detecting and characterizing potential pathogens, impacting the diagnosis and treatment of patients.
JOURNAL OF PROTEOME RESEARCH
(2023)
Article
Microbiology
Chi Li, Chaoying Huang, Ruimu Zhang, Hongmei Wang, Shufeng Tian, Yi-Wei Tang, Jikui Deng
Summary: In recent years, there have been outbreaks of pertussis in countries with high vaccination rates. Early diagnosis of pertussis is crucial and is usually done through laboratory measurements such as culture, serological tests, and PCR assays. This study compared the performance of different detection methods and found that BioFire Respiratory Panel 2 plus (RP2) had a higher sensitivity and specificity for detecting Bordetella pertussis compared to culture and quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR). RP2 also provided quick results, aiding in early diagnosis and treatment decisions.
MICROBIOLOGY SPECTRUM
(2023)
Article
Medicine, General & Internal
Abhijith Biji, Oyahida Khatun, Shachee Swaraj, Rohan Narayan, Raju S. Rajmani, Rahila Sardar, Deepshikha Satish, Simran Mehta, Hima Bindhu, Madhumol Jeevan, Deepak K. Saini, Amit Singh, Dinesh Gupta, Shashank Tripathi
Summary: Analysis and validation revealed S100 family genes (S100A6, S100AB, S100A9, and S100P) as prognostic markers of severe COVID-19. Thioredoxin (TXN) was consistently upregulated. Auranofin, targeting Thioredoxin reductase, reduced SARS-CoV-2 replication in vitro and in a preclinical hamster model.
Article
Microbiology
Claire A. Woodall, Hannah Thornton, Emma C. Anderson, Suzanne M. Ingle, Peter Muir, Barry Vipond, Denise Longhurst, John P. Leeming, Charles R. Beck, Alastair D. Hay
Summary: A study compared the performance of parent-collected and nurse-collected swab samples in detecting respiratory pathogens in children with RTI symptoms. The results showed that parent-collected nasal swab samples performed comparably to nurse-collected samples, while saliva swab samples lacked sensitivity for detecting respiratory microbes. This suggests that parent-collected swab samples could reduce the burden on community health care systems without compromising diagnostic effectiveness.
MICROBIOLOGY SPECTRUM
(2021)
Article
Immunology
Ruihe Shi, Yuan Wang, Shujuan Zhou, Yanli Zhang, Shiwei Zheng, Dingfang Zhang, Xilong Du, Weiyue Gu, Yiran Xu, Changlian Zhu
Summary: This study assessed the diagnostic accuracy of sputum using metagenomic next-generation sequencing for detecting lower respiratory tract infections. The results showed that viral detection in sputum had good sensitivity but poor specificity, while bacterial detection had poor sensitivity. Clinicians should be cautious when interpreting sputum results, particularly for bacterial detection.
FRONTIERS IN CELLULAR AND INFECTION MICROBIOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Biophysics
Ronaldo Challhua, Larissa Akashi, Jose Zuniga, Helena Beatriz de Carvalho Ruthner Batista, Ricardo Moratelli, Ana Champi
Summary: This study presents a portable electrochemical biosensor for the detection of rabies virus in nasopharyngeal swab samples. The biosensor utilizes nucleic acid interactions and a working electrode composed of reduced graphene oxide (rGO) thin-film immobilized with cDNA. The results show that the biosensor has good selectivity and sensitivity for RABV detection in both RNA and swab samples.
BIOSENSORS & BIOELECTRONICS
(2023)
Article
Medicine, General & Internal
Cecilia Goracci, Alessandra Volpe, Lorenzo Salerni, Elisabetta Paolini, Alessandro Vichi, Lorenzo Franchi
Summary: This study aims to design a standardized and convenient nasopharyngeal swab for children and adolescents by collecting nostril to nasopharynx distance measurements on lateral skull radiographs. A total of 323 cephalograms of 152 male and 171 female children aged 4-14 years were analyzed. The new nasopharyngeal swab simplifies the specimen collection process, allowing healthcare providers to collect samples from children in a safe and effective way, even under less-than-ideal conditions in 'point-of-need' contexts.
JOURNAL OF CLINICAL MEDICINE
(2023)
Article
Medicine, General & Internal
Niko Kohmer, Lisa Eckermann, Boris Boeddinghaus, Udo Goetsch, Annemarie Berger, Eva Herrmann, Marhild Kortenbusch, Peter Tinnemann, Rene Gottschalk, Sebastian Hoehl, Sandra Ciesek
Summary: The study found that self-collected saliva and gargle lavage had higher diagnostic sensitivity in testing for SARS-CoV-2, making them preferable alternatives. For most symptomatic patients, saliva, gargle lavage, or mid-turbinate nasal swabs may be considered suitable choices.
JOURNAL OF CLINICAL MEDICINE
(2021)
Article
Medicine, General & Internal
Anna Scarabotto, Simona Balestro, Stella Gagliardi, Rosa Trotti
Summary: This study compared two SARS-CoV-2 testing methods and demonstrated that the faster method is more suitable for detection in nasopharyngeal swabs due to its quicker availability of results, which can improve clinical decision-making and patient safety.
Article
Infectious Diseases
Yoshie Tsujimoto, Junko Terada, Moto Kimura, Ataru Moriya, Ayano Motohashi, Shinyu Izumi, Kazuki Kawajiri, Kazuo Hakkaku, Momoko Morishita, Susumu Saito, Hiroshi Takumida, Hiromu Watanabe, Akinari Tsukada, Chie Morita, Yoh Yamaguchi, Takashi Katsuno, Yusaku Kusaba, Keita Sakamoto, Masao Hashimoto, Manabu Suzuki, Jin Takasaki, Masayuki Hojo, Tohru Miyoshi-Akiyama, Haruhito Sugiyama
Summary: The gold standard in diagnosing COVID-19 is the real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay for detecting SARS-CoV-2 RNA in nasopharyngeal swab (NPS) samples. This study found that nasal swab (NS) samples are more reliable than saliva swab (SS) samples, serving as an alternative to NPS samples in the future.
INFECTIOUS DISEASES
(2021)
