PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Jacques Boutros AU - Jonathan Benzaquen AU - Charles Hugo Marquette AU - Marius Ilié AU - Mickelina Labaky AU - Didier Benchetrit AU - Thibaut Lavrut AU - Sylvie Leroy AU - Richard Chemla AU - Michel Carles AU - Virginie Tanga AU - Charlotte Maniel AU - Olivier Bordone AU - Maryline Allégra AU - Virginie Lespinet AU - Julien Fayada AU - Jennifer Griffonnet AU - Véronique Hofman AU - Paul Hofman TI - Salivary detection of COVID-19. Clinical performance of oral sponge sampling for SARS-CoV-2 testing AID - 10.1183/23120541.00396-2021 DP - 2021 Jan 01 TA - ERJ Open Research PG - 00396-2021 4099 - http://openres.ersjournals.com/content/early/2021/09/16/23120541.00396-2021.short 4100 - http://openres.ersjournals.com/content/early/2021/09/16/23120541.00396-2021.full AB - Background The current diagnostic standard for coronavirus 2019 disease (COVID-19) is reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing with naso-pharyngeal (NP) swabs. The invasiveness and need for trained personnel make the NP technique unsuited for repeated community-based mass screening. We developed a technique to collect saliva in a simple and easy way with the sponges that are usually used for tamponade of epistaxis. This study was carried out to validate the clinical performance of oral sponge (OS) sampling for SARS-CoV-2 testing.Methods Over a period of 22 weeks, we collected prospectively 409 paired NP and OS samples from consecutive subjects presenting to a public community-based free screening center. Subjects were referred by their attending physician because of recent COVID-19 symptoms (n=147) or by the contact tracing staff of the French public health insurance since they were considered as close contacts of a laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 case (n=262).Results In symptomatic subjects, RT-PCR SARS-CoV-2 testing with OS showed a 96.5% (95%CI: 89.6–94.8) concordance with NP testing, and, a 93.2% (95%CI: 89.1–97.3)] sensitivity when using the IdyllaTM platform and a sensitivity of 76.3% [69.4–83.2] on the Synlab Barla laboratory platform. In close contacts the NP-OS concordance (93.8% [95%CI: 90.9–96.7]) and OS sensitivity (71.9% [95%CI: 66.5–77.3]) were slightly lower.Conclusion These results strongly suggest that OS testing is a straightforward, low-cost and high-throughput sampling method that can be used for frequent RT-PCR testing of COVID-19 patients and mass screening of populations.FootnotesThis manuscript has recently been accepted for publication in the ERJ Open Research. It is published here in its accepted form prior to copyediting and typesetting by our production team. After these production processes are complete and the authors have approved the resulting proofs, the article will move to the latest issue of the ERJOR online. Please open or download the PDF to view this article.Conflict of interest: Dr. Boutros has nothing to disclose.Conflict of interest: Dr. Benzaquen has nothing to disclose.Conflict of interest: Dr. MARQUETTE has nothing to disclose.Conflict of interest: Dr. Ilie has nothing to disclose.Conflict of interest: Dr. Labaky has nothing to disclose.Conflict of interest: Dr. Benchetrit has nothing to disclose.Conflict of interest: Dr. Lavrut has nothing to disclose.Conflict of interest: Dr. Leroy has nothing to disclose.Conflict of interest: Dr. Chemla has nothing to disclose.Conflict of interest: Dr. Carles has nothing to disclose.Conflict of interest: Dr. Tanga has nothing to disclose.Conflict of interest: Maniel has nothing to disclose.Conflict of interest: Dr. Bordone has nothing to disclose.Conflict of interest: Maryline AllégraConflict of interest: Virginie LespinetConflict of interest: Julien FayadaConflict of interest: Griffonnet has nothing to disclose.Conflict of interest: Dr. Hofman has nothing to disclose.Conflict of interest: Dr. Hofman reports and Paul Hofman is a member of the scientific advisory board (group of european experts) of Biocartis. However, this boad is totally independ of Biocartis.