ArticleScientific reports2017
A pilot evaluation of whole blood finger-prick sampling for point-of-care HIV viral load measurement: the UNICORN study.
Article in Scientific reports, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT05690607 (Small Volume Blood Testing Validity and Acceptability for HIV-1 and Hepatitis B), which is not on this map. Cited by 13 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Small Volume Blood Testing Validity and Acceptability for HIV-1 and Hepatitis B
Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- Point-of-care viral load tests to detect high HIV viral load in people living with HIV/AIDS attending health facilities.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2022Pooled it
- Performance of Cepheid Xpert HIV-1 viral load plasma assay to accurately detect treatment failure.AIDS (London, England) · 2019Pooled it
- Compact Point-of-Care Device for Self-Administered HIV Viral Load Tests from Whole Blood.ACS sensors · 2023Article
- Sensitive and Quantitative Point-of-Care HIV Viral Load Quantification from Blood Using a Power-Free Plasma Separation and Portable Magnetofluidic Polymerase Chain Reaction Instrument.Analytical chemistry · 2023Article
- Fingerpick Blood-Based Nucleic Acid Testing on A USB Interfaced Device towards HIV self-testing.Biosensors & bioelectronics · 2022Article
- Low-cost, point-of-care biomarker quantification.Current opinion in biotechnology · 2022Review
- Filtration-assisted magnetofluidic cartridge platform for HIV RNA detection from blood.Lab on a chip · 2022Article
- HIV cure research in the time of COVID-19 - Antiretroviral therapy treatment interruption trials: A discussion paper.Journal of virus eradication · 2021Article
- Performance evaluation of the Aptima HIV-1 RNA Quant assay on the Panther system using the standard and dilution protocols.Journal of clinical virology : the official publication of the Pan American Society for Clinical Virology · 2020Article
- Review
- Point-of-Care HIV Viral Load Testing: an Essential Tool for a Sustainable Global HIV/AIDS Response.Clinical microbiology reviews · 2019Review
- Recommendations for analytical antiretroviral treatment interruptions in HIV research trials-report of a consensus meeting.The lancet. HIV · 2019Article
- Propelling the Pediatric HIV Therapeutic Agenda With Science, Innovation, and Collaboration.Journal of acquired immune deficiency syndromes (1999) · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
There is a global need for HIV viral load point-of-care (PoC) assays to monitor patients receiving antiretroviral therapy. UNICORN was the first study of an off-label protocol using whole blood finger-prick samples tested with and without a simple three minute spin using a clinic-room microcentrifuge. Two PoC assays were evaluated in 40 HIV-positive participants, 20 with detectable and 20 with undetectable plasma viral load (pVL) (<20 copies/ml). Using 100 µl finger-prick blood samples, the Cepheid Xpert HIV-1 Viral Load and HIV-1 Qual cartridges were compared with laboratory pVL assessment (TaqMan, Roche). For participants with undetectable viraemia by TaqMan, there was poor concordance without centrifugation with the TaqMan platform with only 40% 'undetectable' using Xpert VL and 25% 'not detected' using the Qual assay. After a 3 minute spin, 100% of samples were undetectable using either assay, showing full concordance with the TaqMan assay. Defining a lower limit of detection of 1000 copies/ml when including a spin, there was 100% concordance with the TaqMan platform with strong correlation (rho 0.95 and 0.94; p < 0.0001 for both assays). When including a simple microcentrifugation step, finger-prick PoC testing was a quick and accurate approach for assessing HIV viraemia, with excellent concordance with validated laboratory approaches.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.