Imperial College London
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DrAnikaSinganayagam

Faculty of Medicine, Department of Infectious Disease

Clinical Lecturer
 
 
 
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Contact

 

anika.singanayagam

 
 
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Location

 

Commonwealth BuildingHammersmith Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Hall:2021:infdis/jiab270,
author = {Hall, JA and Harris, RJ and Emmett, HE and Lowe, B and Singanayagam, A and Twohig, KA and Zaidi, A and Kall, M and Zambon, M and Dabrera, G},
doi = {infdis/jiab270},
journal = {Journal of Infectious Diseases},
pages = {389--394},
title = {On the sensitivity and specificity of postmortem upper respiratory tract testing for SARS-CoV-2},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/infdis/jiab270},
volume = {224},
year = {2021}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - BackgroundPostmortem testing can improve our understanding of the impact of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) if sufficiently sensitive and specific.MethodsWe investigated the postmortem sensitivity and specificity of reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing on upper respiratory swabs using a dataset of everyone tested for SARS-CoV-2 before and after death in England, 1 March to 29 October 2020. We analyzed sensitivity in those with a positive test before death by time to postmortem test. We developed a multivariate model and conducted time-to-negativity survival analysis. For specificity, we analyzed those with a negative test in the week before death.ResultsPostmortem testing within a week after death had a sensitivity of 96.8% if the person had tested positive within a week before death. There was no effect of age, sex, or specimen type on sensitivity, but individuals with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)–related codes on their death certificate were 5.65 times more likely to test positive after death (95% confidence interval, 2.31–13.9). Specificity was 94.2%, increasing to 97.5% in individuals without COVID-19 on the death certificate.ConclusionPostmortem testing has high sensitivity (96.8%) and specificity (94.2%) if performed within a week after death and could be a useful diagnostic tool.
AU  - Hall,JA
AU  - Harris,RJ
AU  - Emmett,HE
AU  - Lowe,B
AU  - Singanayagam,A
AU  - Twohig,KA
AU  - Zaidi,A
AU  - Kall,M
AU  - Zambon,M
AU  - Dabrera,G
DO  - infdis/jiab270
EP  - 394
PY  - 2021///
SN  - 0022-1899
SP  - 389
TI  - On the sensitivity and specificity of postmortem upper respiratory tract testing for SARS-CoV-2
T2  - Journal of Infectious Diseases
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/infdis/jiab270
UR  - https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000685249700003&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=a2bf6146997ec60c407a63945d4e92bb
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1093/infdis/jiab270
VL  - 224
ER  -
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