(Fighting against New Coronary Pneumonia) Zhong Nanshan team: Pharyngeal gargle used for nucleic acid detection of New Coronavirus is more accurate than nasal swabs
China News Agency, Guangzhou, April 22 (Cai Minjie) The team of Zhong Nanshan, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, has made new progress in the research of nucleic acid detection of new coronavirus. The Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Health said on the 22nd that "Clinical Infectious Disease" (Clinical Infectious Disease) published a report by the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, the National Clinical Research Center for Respiratory Diseases, and the Deputy Dean of Guangzhou Respiratory Health Institute Li Shiyue and the As a result of the research conducted by the team's chief physician Ye Feng, this study was the first to develop a throat rinse sample for the detection of new coronavirus nucleic acid. At the same time, it was compared with the detection rate of nasal swabs and found that the positive rate of throat rinse was higher than that of nasal swab samples.
Nucleic acid testing is currently the main detection method for new coronavirus infections, but studies have shown that different sampling specimens have different sensitivities to the detection of new coronavirus nucleic acids. The optimal sampling specimen should meet: 1. Non-invasive, convenient and easy to perform; 2. High positive rate of viral nucleic acid test; 3. No need to contact patients during sampling; 4. Avoid aerosol biological safety issues as much as possible.
Nasopharyngeal swabs are currently the most commonly used samples for the detection of nucleic acid in new coronavirus, and studies have shown that the positive rate of detection of nucleic acid in new coronavirus is higher than that of pharyngeal swabs. However, patients with nasal swab sampling generally have obvious discomfort. Secondly, nasal swab sampling cannot avoid the problem of increased risk of infection by the sampler due to contact with the patient. There is a need to develop new, safe, convenient, and operable samples to detect new coronavirus nucleic acids.
In response to this problem, Li Shiyue and Ye Feng's team proposed a sampling method for pharyngeal gargle, which can obtain more epithelial cells by shaking the posterior pharyngeal wall with sterile saline to increase the positive rate of detection. To this end, they collected throat swabs and nasal swabs of patients with new coronavirus pneumonia at the same time for the detection of new coronavirus nucleic acid, and compared the positive rates of the two.
A total of 11 patients diagnosed with novel coronavirus pneumonia were included in the study. Among them, 6 patients with positive sputum new coronavirus test were still in hospital isolation, and the remaining 5 patients had reached the discharge standard and entered the 14-day observation period. There were 9 males and 2 females, aged 26 to 83 years. A total of 24 pharyngeal lavage and nasal swab specimens were collected, and the average number of days from the onset of detection was (53 ± 2) days. Six cases of nasal swabs were detected negative for the new crown nucleic acid virus, and the corresponding nasal swab new crown nucleic acid virus test was positive. 17 cases of nasal swabs were tested negative for new crown nucleic acid virus, and their corresponding nasal swabs were tested negative for new crown nucleic acid virus.
At present, the global epidemic situation is severe. As a non-invasive, easy-to-use and effective sampling method, pharyngeal lavage fluid can be used for nucleic acid detection of new coronavirus. The patients are kept on their own to avoid contact with infected patients and reduce the risk of infection by medical staff. At the same time, it can reduce the waiting time for sampling, especially for the huge number of infected patients, limited medical staff and busy clinical work. (Finish)