Comparison of ID NOW COVID-19 with RT-PCR for Diagnosis and Management of COVID-19 Cases

Abstract

ABSTRACT Introduction: Rapid diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 is a challenging issue for healthcare personnel. Abbott’s ID NOW COVID-19 assay is a rapid instrument based on isothermal nucleic acid amplification method for qualitative estimation of SARS-CoV-2 in nasal, nasopharyngeal, and throat swabs. Aim and objective: The performance of ID NOW was compared with standard reference RT-PCR in 609 patients. Results and discussion: The two methods agreed in 90.6% of the cases and disagreed in 9.4% of the cases, and this agreement was statistically significant (Cohen’s Kappa = 0.727, P < 0.001). The diagnostic performance of ID NOW in predicting RT-PCR positivity was as follows: sensitivity of 78%; specificity of 94%; positive predictive value (PPV) of 80%; negative predictive value (NPV) of 94%; and diagnostic accuracy of 91%. Conclusion: Hence ID NOW can be used as point-of-care testing in the diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 and thereby immediately isolate positive cases from negative cases.