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. 2021 Aug;42(8):1001-1003.
doi: 10.1017/ice.2020.1326. Epub 2020 Nov 18.

Sensitivity of midturbinate versus nasopharyngeal swabs for the detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)

Alainna J Jamal  1   2   3 , Mohammad Mozafarihashjin  2 , Eric Coomes  3 , Sofia Anceva-Sami  2 , Shiva Barati  2 , Gloria Crowl  2 , Amna Faheem  2 , Lubna Farooqi  2 , Christopher E Kandel  1   2   3 , Saman Khan  2 , Angel X Li  2 , Henna Mistry  4 , Aimee Paterson  2 , Simon Plenderleith  4 , Karren Prost  4 , Susan Poutanen  2   3 , Jeff Powis  5 , Renée Schryer  4 , Maureen Taylor  5 , Lily Yip  4 , Xi Zoe Zhong  2 , Allison J McGeer  1   2   3 , Samira Mubareka  3   4 ; Toronto Invasive Bacterial Diseases Network COVID-19 Investigators
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Sensitivity of midturbinate versus nasopharyngeal swabs for the detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)

Alainna J Jamal et al. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 2021 Aug.

Abstract

To compare sensitivity of specimens for COVID-19 diagnosis, we tested 151 nasopharyngeal/midturbinate swab pairs from 117 COVID-19 inpatients using reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Sensitivity was 94% for nasopharyngeal and 75% for midturbinate swabs (P = .0001). In 88 nasopharyngeal/midturbinate pairs with matched saliva, sensitivity was 86% for nasopharyngeal swabs and 88% for combined midturbinate swabs/saliva.

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