Clinical performance of Roche cobas 6800, Luminex ARIES, MiRXES Fortitude Kit 2.1, Altona RealStar, and Applied Biosystems TaqPath for SARS-CoV-2 detection in nasopharyngeal swabs

Abstract

We compared the performance of five assays for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) detection on nasopharyngeal swab samples: Roche "cobas," Luminex "ARIES," MiRXES "Fortitude," Altona "RealStar," and Thermo Fisher Scientific "TaqPath." A total of 94 nasopharyngeal swab samples were obtained from 80 confirmed coronavirus disease 2019 cases in the first 2 weeks of illness (median, 7 days; range, 2-14 days) and 14 healthy controls. After collection, all samples were transported to the hospital clinical laboratory within 24 h. These samples were tested on all five assays within 3 days of sample receipt. Of the 94 samples, 69 yielded the same result on all platforms, resulting in an agreement of 73.4% (69 of 94). Of these, 14 were the healthy control swabs which all tested negative, demonstrating good specificity across all platforms. The ARIES assay had the lowest detection rate (68.8%), followed by Fortitude (85.0%), RealStar (86.3%), cobas (95.0%), and TaqPath (100%). Statistically significant differences were observed for ARIES, Fortitude, and RealStar when compared against the best performing TaqPath using McNemar's χ² test. A consensus result was established based on the results obtained by the cobas, Fortitude, RealStar, and TaqPath. Six discrepancies had failed to reach a consensus and were adjudicated using the Cepheid Xpert Xpress SARS-CoV-2. Overall, the TaqPath and cobas assays were the most sensitive at detecting their designated SARS-CoV-2 gene targets. On the other hand, the ARIES assay was the least sensitive, thus warranting the need for assay re-optimization before go-live at the testing laboratory.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; coronavirus; molecular diagnostics; pandemic.