Comparing Nasopharyngeal and Mid-Turbinate Nasal Swab Testing for the Identification of SARS-CoV-2

Swetha Pinninti; Connie Trieu; Sunil K Pati; Misty Latting; Joshua Cooper; Maria C Seleme; Sushma Boppana; Nitin Arora; William J Britt; Suresh B Boppana

doi:10.1093/cid/ciaa882

Comparing Nasopharyngeal and Mid-Turbinate Nasal Swab Testing for the Identification of SARS-CoV-2

Clin Infect Dis. 2020 Jun 29;ciaa882. doi: 10.1093/cid/ciaa882. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pediatrics, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, US.
² Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, US.
³ Departments of Pediatrics and Microbiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, US.

Abstract

Testing of paired mid-turbinate (MT) nasal and nasopharyngeal (NP) swabs, collected by trained personnel from 40 patients with COVID-19 showed more NP (76/95, 80%) than MT swabs tested positive (61/95, 64%; p=0.02). Among samples collected a week after study enrollment, fewer MT than NP samples were positive (45% vs 76%; p=0.001).

Keywords: COVID-19; mid-turbinate swab; nasopharyngeal; viral load.