ArticleJournal of laboratory physicians2020
Effectiveness of Sample Pooling Strategies for SARS-CoV-2 Mass Screening by RT-PCR: A Scoping Review.
Article in Journal of laboratory physicians, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed, 42 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pathogens on High-Touch Surfaces in an Arid Megacity: A Longitudinal Molecular Surveillance Study.Microorganisms · 2026Article
- Within-laboratory SARS-CoV-2 real time PCR testing operations in Nepal: a simulation-based analysis.The Lancet regional health. Southeast Asia · 2025Article
- Use of compressed sensing to expedite high-throughput diagnostic testing for COVID-19 and beyond.PLoS computational biology · 2022Article
- Digital PCR Applications in the SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 Era: a Roadmap for Future Outbreaks.Clinical microbiology reviews · 2022Review
- Non-PCR Ultrasensitive Detection of Viral RNA by a Nanoprobe-Coupling Strategy: SARS-CoV-2 as an Example.Advanced healthcare materials · 2022Article
- On-Site Viral Inactivation and RNA Preservation of Gargle and Saliva Samples Combined with Direct Analysis of SARS-CoV-2 RNA on Magnetic Beads.ACS measurement science au · 2022Article
- Strategies for Scaling up SARS-CoV-2 Molecular Testing Capacity.Clinics in laboratory medicine · 2022Review
- Pooled sample testing for COVID-19 diagnosis: Evaluation of bi-directional matrix pooling strategies.Journal of virological methods · 2022Article
- Detecting Intact Virus Using Exogenous Oligonucleotide Labels.Analytical chemistry · 2022Article
- Evaluation of SARS-CoV-2 genome detection by real-time PCR assay using pooled specimens.Future virology · 2022Article
- [Performance of the Procleix SARS-CoV-2 transcriptase-mediated amplification (TMA) assay for the diagnosis of COVID-19 in nasopharyngeal sample pools. Small pilot study].Revista espanola de quimioterapia : publicacion oficial de la Sociedad Espanola de Quimioterapia · 2022Article
- Improvement of SARS-COV-2 screening using pooled sampling testing in limited RT-qPCR resources.Journal of virological methods · 2022Article
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- Safe and effective pool testing for SARS-CoV-2 detection.Journal of clinical virology : the official publication of the Pan American Society for Clinical Virology · 2021Article
- Clinical evaluation of a multiplex real-time RT-PCR assay for detection of SARS-CoV-2 in individual and pooled upper respiratory tract samples.Archives of virology · 2021Article
- Use of compressed sensing to expedite high-throughput diagnostic testing for COVID-19 and beyond.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2021Article
- Evaluation of automated molecular tests for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 in pooled nasopharyngeal and saliva specimens.Journal of clinical laboratory analysis · 2021Article
- Pooled testing for SARS-CoV-2 infection in an automated high-throughput platform.Journal of clinical laboratory analysis · 2021Article
- Recent advances and challenges of RT-PCR tests for the diagnosis of COVID-19.Pathology, research and practice · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has hugely impacted the economy of many countries, and there is an acute shortage of diagnostic resources. With the exponential increase in the number of cases and necessity to screen large number of people, there is a steep increase in the demand for diagnostic kits. Pooled-sample testing is a promising strategy to screen a large population rapidly with limited resources. The aim of this work was to compile a cohesive literature review of the effectiveness and accuracy of pooled-sample testing in the detection of SARS-CoV-2 and critically analyze its limitations. Medline, Google Scholar, Embase, and preprint servers (e.g., bioRxiv) were searched for literature on pooled testing for diagnosis of COVID-19, and out of initial 60 articles/reports, nine original articles were retained. Optimal pool size (number of samples in a pool) seemed to be dependent on factors like prevalence or rate of positivity in community. In low-prevalence localities pool size of around 30 seemed to be effective as observed by some authors. All the researchers had found significant reduction in number of tests (depending on pool size, stages, and pooling design), leading to conservation of resources. Pooling can be done with extracted RNA eluate or directly with patient's sample before extraction. This leads to further reduction in consumables, time and manpower. Risk of false negativity in samples with high-threshold cycle (i.e., low-viral load) value was a concern. Some researchers suggest adding few additional cycles to lower the chances of missing positive cases with low-Ct value. Lower limit of detection (LoD) of RT-PCR kits, that is, sensitivity of kits was another factor to consider. Thus, in a country like India, given the economic benefit and scarcity of resources, pooling strategy can be very effective, especially in low-prevalence areas and in low-risk contacts.
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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.