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. 2021 Jun;27(6):915-918.
doi: 10.1016/j.jiac.2021.02.025. Epub 2021 Feb 25.

Immunochromatography and chemiluminescent enzyme immunoassay for COVID-19 diagnosis

Toshiaki Ishii  1 , Masakazu Sasaki  1 , Kageto Yamada  2 , Daiki Kato  3 , Hiroyoshi Osuka  3 , Kotaro Aoki  4 , Toshisuke Morita  5 , Yoshikazu Ishii  4 , Kazuhiro Tateda  4
Affiliations

Immunochromatography and chemiluminescent enzyme immunoassay for COVID-19 diagnosis

Toshiaki Ishii et al. J Infect Chemother. 2021 Jun.

Abstract

Introduction: The rapid and accurate detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is required to prevent the spread of COVID-19. This study evaluated the utility of two SARS-CoV-2 antigen detection methods.

Methods: We evaluated two types of antigen detection methods using immunochromatography (Espline) and quantitative chemiluminescent enzyme immunoassay (Lumipulse). RT-PCR was performed as a standard procedure for COVID-19 diagnosis. Lumipulse and RT-PCR were performed for all 486 nasopharyngeal swabs and 136 saliva samples, and the Espline test was performed for 271 nasopharyngeal swabs and 93 saliva samples.

Results: The sensitivity and specificity of the Espline test were 10/11 and 260/260 (100%), respectively for the nasopharyngeal swabs and 3/9 and 84/84 (100%), respectively for the saliva samples. High sensitivities for both saliva (8/9) and nasopharyngeal swabs (22/24) were observed in the Lumipulse test. The specificities of the Lumipulse test for nasopharyngeal swabs and saliva samples were 460/462 (99.6%) and 123/127 (96.9%), respectively.

Conclusion: The Espline test is not effective for saliva samples but is useful for simple and rapid COVID-19 tests using nasopharyngeal swabs because it does not require special devices. The Lumipulse test is a powerful high-throughput tool for COVID-19 diagnosis because it has high detection performance for nasopharyngeal swabs and saliva samples.

Keywords: Antigen detection; Espline; Lumipulse; RT-PCR; SARS-CoV-2.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest None.

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