RT Journal Article
T1 Sample pooling for SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR screening.
A1 de Salazar, Adolfo
A1 Aguilera, Antonio
A1 Trastoy, Rocio
A1 Fuentes, Ana
A1 Alados, Juan Carlos
A1 Causse, Manuel
A1 Galan, Juan Carlos
A1 Moreno, Antonio
A1 Trigo, Matilde
A1 Perez-Ruiz, Mercedes
A1 Roldan, Carolina
A1 Pena, Maria Jose
A1 Bernal, Samuel
A1 Serrano-Conde, Esther
A1 Barbeito, Gema
A1 Torres, Eva
A1 Riazzo, Cristina
A1 Cortes-Cuevas, Jose Luis
A1 Chueca, Natalia
A1 Coira, Amparo
A1 Sanchez-Calvo, Juan Manuel
A1 Marfil, Eduardo
A1 Becerra, Federico
A1 Gude, Maria Jose
A1 Pallares, Angeles
A1 Perez Del Molino, Maria Luisa
A1 Garcia, Federico
K1 Pooled analysis
K1 RT-PCR
K1 SARS-CoV-2
K1 Sample pooling
K1 Sensitivity
K1 Área de Gestión Sanitaria de Jerez, Costa Noroeste y Sierra de Cádiz
K1 Área de Gestión Sanitaria Sur de Sevilla
AB To evaluate the efficacy of sample pooling compared to the individual analysis for the diagnosis of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) by using different commercial platforms for nucleic acid extraction and amplification. A total of 3519 nasopharyngeal samples received at nine Spanish clinical microbiology laboratories were processed individually and in pools (342 pools of ten samples and 11 pools of nine samples) according to the existing methodology in place at each centre. We found that 253 pools (2519 samples) were negative and 99 pools (990 samples) were positive; with 241 positive samples (6.85%), our pooling strategy would have saved 2167 PCR tests. For 29 pools (made out of 290 samples), we found discordant results when compared to their correspondent individual samples, as follows: in 22 of 29 pools (28 samples), minor discordances were found; for seven pools (7 samples), we found major discordances. Sensitivity, specificity and positive and negative predictive values for pooling were 97.10% (95% confidence interval (CI), 94.11-98.82), 100%, 100% and 99.79% (95% CI, 99.56-99.90) respectively; accuracy was 99.80% (95% CI, 99.59-99.92), and the kappa concordant coefficient was 0.984. The dilution of samples in our pooling strategy resulted in a median loss of 2.87 (95% CI, 2.46-3.28) cycle threshold (Ct) for E gene, 3.36 (95% CI, 2.89-3.85) Ct for the RdRP gene and 2.99 (95% CI, 2.56-3.43) Ct for the N gene. We found a high efficiency of pooling strategies for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) RNA testing across different RNA extraction and amplification platforms, with excellent performance in terms of sensitivity, specificity and positive and negative predictive values.
PB Elsevier
YR 2020
FD 2020-09-03
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10668/16248
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10668/16248
LA en
NO de Salazar A, Aguilera A, Trastoy R, Fuentes A, Alados JC, Causse M, et al. Sample pooling for SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR screening. Clin Microbiol Infect. 2020 Dec;26(12):1687.e1-1687.e5
DS RISalud
RD Apr 12, 2025