Result for
Topic: Testing and Treatment
April 21, 2020
Outcomes of hydroxychloroquine usage in United States veterans hospitalized with Covid-19
This retrospective analysis of 368 patients who had received hydroxychloroquine (with azithromycin or alone) explored the association between treatment and the primary outcomes of mechanical ventilation and death. No evidence was found of reduced risk of mechanical ventilation, and use of hydroxychloroquine alone was associated with an increased risk of overall mortality. These findings highlight…
False-Negative Results of Initial RT-PCR Assays for COVID-19: A Systematic Review
Arevalo-Rodriguez et al reviewed available evidence on false-negative RT-PRC results when testing for SARS-CoV-2 using 5 studies enrolling 957 patients in total. While cautious in interpretation due to potential bias and heterogeneity of findings, the authors report the pooled false-negative proportion of 0.085 (95% CI= 0.034-0.196) and reinforce the need for repeated testing in patients…
Development and Multicenter Performance Evaluation of The First Fully Automated SARS-CoV-2 IgM and IgG Immunoassays
Qian et al evaluated the clinical sensitivity of IgM and IgG SARS-CoV-2 antibody testing using 972 non-COVID-19 patients, 586 normal donors, and 503 RT-PCR-confirmed cases. IgM and IgG show clinical sensitivity of 85.88% and 96.62% respectively for confirmed SARS-Cov-2 infection with RT-PCR. These assays may add great value to nucleic acid testing. Qian et al….
April 20, 2020
Diagnosis of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19): rRT-PCR or CT?
Long et al compared the diagnosis value of CT vs real-time RT-PCR (rRT-PCR) in 36 patients, reporting sensitivities of 97.2% and 83.3%, respectively, at the time of initial testing. Six patients were missed in the first round of rRT-PCR, indicating that this method may produce initial false negative results. The authors suggest that patients with…
Symptom Screening at Illness Onset of Health Care Personnel With SARS-CoV-2 Infection in King County, Washington
To assess the spectrum of symptoms at onset of illness among 48 healthcare personnel (HCP) in King County and to evaluate current screening criteria for early detection of COVID-19, the authors find that screening for only fever, cough, shortness of breath or sore throat may have missed 17% of symptomatic HCP, while expanding criteria to…
Evaluation of antibody testing for SARS-CoV-2 using ELISA and lateral flow immunoassays
Recognizing the need for robust antibody detection testing, Crook tested plasma for SARS-CoV-2 IgM and IgG antibodies by ELISA and 9 different commercially available lateral flow immunoassay (LFIA) devices. ELISA has a sensitivity of 85% (34/40) ≥10 after symptom onset and a specificity of 100% (142/142), whereas the performance of LFIA was much lower with…
April 17, 2020
Rapid Serological Tests Have a Role in Asymptomatic Health Workers COVID-19 Screening
To gain insight on the prevalence of asymptomatic cases among healthcare workers (HCWs), Paradiso et al tested 525 asymptomatic HCWs of a Cancer Institute in Vo’Euganeo (a red zone quarantined area in Northern Italy) using VivaDiagTM antibody testing. They report that none of the 6 workers who tested positive for COVID-19 with the VivaDiagTM kit…
April 16, 2020
Renin-angiotensin system inhibitors improve the clinical outcomes of COVID-19 patients with hypertension
This study demonstrates that renin-angiotensin system (RAS) inhibitors improve the clinical outcomes of COVID-19 patients with hypertension, suggesting that these patients could benefit from the persistent or preferential usage of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs) and angiotensin II type 1 receptor blockers (ARBs) for antihypertensive treatment. Meng et al. (Mar 31, 2020). Renin-angiotensin system inhibitors improve…
Treatment with convalescent plasma for COVID-19 patients in Wuhan, China
This descriptive study, on 6 patients who received the transfusion of ABO-compatible convalescent plasma (CP) to evaluate the efficacy of CP therapy, indicates that CP therapy is effective and specific for COVID-19. The efficacy of this intervention was determined by the alleviation of symptoms, changes in radiologic abnormalities and laboratory tests. Ye et al. (Apr…
Brief Report: Identifying common pharmacotherapies associated with reduced COVID-19 morbidity using electronic health records
Results from a cohort study across 5 Eastern Massachusetts hospitals suggest that electronic health records may complement efforts to identify novel therapeutics for COVID-19 by identifying FDA-approved compounds with potential benefit in reducing COVID-19 associated morbidity. Preliminary findings based on a comparison of ranked electronic prescribing frequencies indicate that medications enriched among test-positive individuals not…
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