Early and accurate testing is critical to prevent the spread of new coronaviruses and provide appropriate care for patients, the U.S. media reported on July 26. Currently, nasopharyngeal swabs - which require insertion of a swab into the nasal cavity to collect samples from the back of the nose and throat - are the gold standard for collecting samples for diagnosis. However, the process is technically difficult, often causes patient discomfort, and requires personal protective equipment that may be in short supply.
Other methods of collecting samples - including oropharyngeal swabs and sputum collection - have also been tested in a number of small studies, but it is uncertain which method is best for detecting new coronaviruses.
The three methods were compared. The team found that sputum testing was significantly more successful than oropharyngeal swab testing for detecting new coronavirus RNA. Our gold standard in and out of the hospital is the nasopharyngeal swab, but there is still a lot of confusion about which sampling method is best and most sensitive," said study author Jonathan Lee, MD, PhD, of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
Our study shows that sputum testing greatly improves the detection rate of neo-coronary pneumonia and supports the use of this test as a very important method for diagnosing and monitoring patients with neo-coronary pneumonia.
"The team of Li and colleagues examined the positive detection rates for each collection method. The detection rate was 54 percent for nasopharyngeal swabs and 43 percent for oropharyngeal swabs, compared with 71 percent for sputum. The detection rate of sputum was significantly higher than that of oropharyngeal swabs or nasopharyngeal swabs. The detection rate was high for all three collection methods within one week after the onset of symptoms.
