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. 2020 Jun 17;2(8):acmi000138.
doi: 10.1099/acmi.0.000138. eCollection 2020.

Whatman FTA cards versus plasma specimens for the quantitation of HIV-1 RNA using two real-time PCR assays

Abdourahamane Yacouba  1 , Malika Congo  1 , Gérard Komonsira Dioma  1 , Hermann Somlare  1 , David Coulidiaty  1 , Kalifa Ouattara  1 , Lassana Sangare  1   2
Affiliations

Whatman FTA cards versus plasma specimens for the quantitation of HIV-1 RNA using two real-time PCR assays

Abdourahamane Yacouba et al. Access Microbiol. .

Abstract

Background: Several studies have compared the use of dried blot spot (DBS) as an alternative to plasma specimens, mainly using Whatman 903 cards as filter paper. The aim of this study was to evaluate the use of Whatman FTA card (FTA card) specimens for HIV-1 viral load testing compared to plasma specimens using two real-time PCR assays manufactured by Roche and Abbott.

Methodology: A cross-sectional study was conducted between April 2017 and September 2017 on HIV-1 patients admitted to Yalgado Ouédraogo Teaching Hospital. Paired FTA cards and plasma specimens were collected and analysed using the Abbott Real-Time HIV-1 assay (Abbott) and COBAS AmpliPrep/COBAS TaqMan v2.0 (Roche).

Results: In total, 107 patients were included. No statistical differences (P>0.05) were observed between the mean viral loads obtained from the FTA cards and those of the plasma specimens using the Roche and Abbott assays. In total, 29 samples with Roche and 15 samples with Abbott assay showed discrepant results. At viral loads of ≤1000 copies ml-1, the sensitivity and specificity of the FTA cards were 78.6 and 100% with Roche, and 92.3 and 95.9% with Abbott, respectively. Both the Roche and Abbott assays showed good correlation and agreement between the FTA cards and plasma values.

Conclusion: Our study demonstrates the feasibility of using FTA card filter paper for HIV-1 viral load testing. However, further studies will be required for the validation of the use of FTA card filter paper in HIV-1 treatment monitoring.

Keywords: Burkina Faso; HIV-1; Whatman FTA cards; dried blood spots; real-time PCR; viral load.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Comparison between Whatman FTA cards and plasma specimens in HIV-1 RNA. The boxplot to the left (a) using Roche assay; the boxplot to the right (b) using Abbott assay. The black points in the boxplot indicates the means values. Assay results are in log10 copies ml−1.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Correlation between FTA cards and plasma specimens in HIV-1 RNA quantitation. The red line indicates the best fit of the data to a linear regression. (a) Using the Roche assay. (b) Using the Abbott assay.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
Bland–Altman analysis between FTA cards and plasma specimens in HIV-1 RNA quantitation. (a) Using the Roche assay. (b) Using the Abbott assay. The black line indicates the bias and the dotted black lines show 95% limits of agreement. Assay results are in log10 copies ml−1.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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