Performance of commercially available HIV in vitro diagnostic assays: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Efficient and fast detection of HIV infection is required to make the diagnosis more robust. Use of in vitro HIV diagnostic assays based on different methods are growing rapidly. To maintain quality and further upgradation, regular performance evaluation is required. Due to presence of huge number and types of commercially available kits, choice of implementation varies differentially. The present systematic review and meta-analysis is aimed to address the diagnostic performance of commercially available in vitro HIV assays in terms of pooled sensitivity, specificity, Positive Likelihood Ratio, Negative Likelihood Ratio, area under hierarchical summary receiver operating characteristic curve and diagnostic odds ratios, in global scenario. Total of 18 articles with 35 in vitro diagnostic serological assays including 29,713 samples were subjected for the present pooled analysis. In spite of higher heterogenicity [I² = 93.5%, Q = 520.95, df = 34 (p = 0.0000), τ² = 9.7464], the pooled sensitivity and specificity of the diagnostic serological assays were observed ≥ 98%.