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Review
. 2021 Jul;93(7):4242-4246.
doi: 10.1002/jmv.26937. Epub 2021 Mar 25.

Potential false-positive reasons for SARS-CoV-2 antibody testing and its solution

Qing Ye  1 , Ting Zhang  2 , Dezhao Lu  2
Affiliations
Review

Potential false-positive reasons for SARS-CoV-2 antibody testing and its solution

Qing Ye et al. J Med Virol. 2021 Jul.

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has brought a huge impact on global health and the economy. Early diagnosis of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection is essential for epidemic prevention and control. The detection of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies is an important criterion for diagnosing COVID-19. However, SARS-CoV-2 antibody testing also has certain false positives causing confusion in clinical diagnosis. This article summarizes the causes of false-positive detection of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in clinical practice. The results indicate that the most common endogenous interferences include rheumatoid factor, heterophile antibodies, human anti-animal antibodies, lysozyme, complement, and cross-antigens. The exogenous interference is mainly incomplete coagulation of the specimen, contamination of the specimen, and insufficient optimization of the diagnostic kit's reaction system.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; antibody; exogenous interference; false positive; intrinsic interference.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that there are no conflict of interests.

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