RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Use of exhaled breath condensate (EBC) in the diagnosis of SARS-COV-2 (COVID-19)
JF Thorax
JO Thorax
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and British Thoracic Society
SP 86
OP 88
DO 10.1136/thoraxjnl-2020-215705
VO 76
IS 1
A1 Daniel J Ryan
A1 Sinead Toomey
A1 Stephen F Madden
A1 Michelle Casey
A1 Oscar S Breathnach
A1 Patrick G Morris
A1 Liam Grogan
A1 Peter Branagan
A1 Richard W Costello
A1 Eoghan De Barra
A1 Killian Hurley
A1 Cedric Gunaratnam
A1 Noel G McElvaney
A1 Michael Emmet OBrien
A1 Imran Sulaiman
A1 Ross K Morgan
A1 Bryan T Hennessy
YR 2021
UL http://thorax.bmj.com/content/76/1/86.abstract
AB False negatives from nasopharyngeal swabs (NPS) using reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR) in SARS-CoV-2 are high. Exhaled breath condensate (EBC) contains lower respiratory droplets that may improve detection. We performed EBC RT-PCR for SARS-CoV-2 genes (E, S, N, ORF1ab) on NPS-positive (n=16) and NPS-negative/clinically positive COVID-19 patients (n=15) using two commercial assays. EBC detected SARS-CoV-2 in 93.5% (29/31) using the four genes. Pre-SARS-CoV-2 era controls (n=14) were negative. EBC was positive in NPS negative/clinically positive patients in 66.6% (10/15) using the identical E and S (E/S) gene assay used for NPS, 73.3% (11/15) using the N/ORF1ab assay and 14/15 (93.3%) combined.