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Published on: September 8, 2023
Diagnostic Accuracy of Conjunctival Rt-Pcr in Sars-Cov-2: A Systematic Review and Diagnostic Accuracy Meta-Analysis
Aurélie Faubert1, Rania Bohsina1, Eunice You1
1University Ophthalmology Center, Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital (HMR), Canada.
Purpose:
To study the positivity rate of conjunctival realtime polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).
Design:
Systematic review and diagnostic accuracy meta-analysis.
Methods:
MEDLINE and EMBASE were queried using medical subject headings terms. Diagnostic accuracy meta-analyses and forest plots were obtained using the RevMan software.
Results:
After deduplication, appraisal of abstract titles and full-text analysis of 1441 articles, 42 articles with 3351 COVID-19 patients were included in this review. Of these, 412 conjunctival swabs/Schirmer paper strips tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 by RT-PCR. The pooled sensitivity of the RT-PCR tests across the 24 studies with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 patients was 10.3%.
Conclusions:
Only 1 in 10 RT-PCR tests performed on conjunctival swabs were positive for SARS-CoV-2. Although this suggests that SARS-CoV-2 is likely present and detectable in the conjunctiva, this detection method has low diagnostic potential.
