A large-scale study of respiratory virus infection over 2 years using the Luminex xTAGRVP assay

Traditional methods of detecting and identifying respiratory viruses like cell culture and immunofluorescence are labor intensive, often slow, and are dependent on specimen viability. As a result, there has been a shift in laboratory practices from these methods to molecular-based techniques such as polymerase chain reaction, which can be faster, more sensitive, and less labor intensive than traditional methods. The Food and Drug Administration approved version of the Luminex xTAG respiratory viral panel (RVP) assay detects 12 respiratory viruses simultaneously. We evaluated the performance of the RVP assay, on over 8,000 nasopharyngeal specimens during a 2-year period. Approximately 70% of all specimens tested were positive for at least one respiratory virus. Influenza A (Inf A) was the most prevalent, followed by respiratory syncytial virus. The RVP assay also detected the newly emerging Inf A porcine H1N1 that started to circulate in 2008. However, it could not identify it to subtype level and required further confirmatory tests. This study shows that the RVP assay is an invaluable tool in monitoring seasonal outbreaks and pandemic events. It not only detects newly emerging influenza strains, but also allows the throughput of thousands of clinical specimens in a timely manner, reducing the turnaround time from weeks to days, when compared to cell culture.