June 18, 2020

Performance of Oropharyngeal Swab Testing Compared to Nasopharyngeal Swab Testing for Diagnosis of COVID-19 —United States, January-February 2020

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Testing and Treatment

• Investigators analyzed data on 146 nasopharyngeal (NP) and oropharyngeal (OP) swab pairs collected ≤ 7 days after COPVID-19 illness onset and tested them with RT-PCR for SARS-CoV-2 and found diagnostic results were 95.2% concordant. Results also showed that NP swabs could contain more viral material, resulting in lower cycle times, suggestion that NP swabs may have higher sensitivity to detect lower viral concentrations. 

Patel et al. (June 16, 2020). Performance of Oropharyngeal Swab Testing Compared to Nasopharyngeal Swab Testing for Diagnosis of COVID-19 —United States, January-February 2020. Clinical Infectious Diseases. https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciaa759