ReviewThe Lancet. Infectious diseases2021
Scaling up COVID-19 rapid antigen tests: promises and challenges.
Review in The Lancet. Infectious diseases, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 198 papers, 5 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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
198 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Incidence, severity, risk factors and outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 reinfections during the Omicron period: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Journal of global health · 2025Pooled it
- Association Between Rapid Antigen Detection Tests and Real-Time Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction Assay for SARS-CoV-2: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses.International journal of public health · 2023Pooled it
- Diagnostic Accuracy of Rapid Antigen Tests for COVID-19 Detection: A Systematic Review With Meta-analysis.Frontiers in medicine · 2022Pooled it
- Diagnostic Accuracy of SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Tests for Community Transmission Screening: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Pooled it
- Real-world clinical performance of commercial SARS-CoV-2 rapid antigen tests in suspected COVID-19: A systematic meta-analysis of available data as of November 20, 2020.International journal of infectious diseases : IJID : official publication of the International Society for Infectious Diseases · 2021Pooled it
- Prevention of SARS-CoV-2 transmission during a large, live, indoor gathering (SPRING): a non-inferiority, randomised, controlled trial.The Lancet. Infectious diseases · 2022Trial
- User experience of home-based AbC-19 SARS-CoV-2 antibody rapid lateral flow immunoassay test.Scientific reports · 2022Trial
- Guiding point-of-care therapeutic drug monitoring through structure-toxicity principles.Chemical science · 2026Article
- Programmable DNA/Polyacrylamide Network-Grafted Broadband Plasmonic Liquid Metal Nanoparticles for Ultrafast Real-Time Molecular Diagnostics.Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) · 2026Article
- Approaching Gold-Standard Sensitivity in a Portable and Versatile Gold Nanoprisms Thermoplasmonic Platform for Lateral Flow Detection of Biomolecules.Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) · 2026Article
- Next-Generation Bionic Sensors for Small Molecule Detection: Integrating Synthetic Biology, Nanomaterials, and Artificial Intelligence.Micromachines · 2026Review
- Salivary and Serum Analytes and Their Associations with Self-rated Health Among Healthy Young Adults.International journal of behavioral medicine · 2026Article
- Impact of in-school antigen testing on the prevalence of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 carriers during the COVID-19 pandemic era.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Application of Generative Adversarial Networks to Improve COVID-19 Classification on Ultrasound Images.Journal of imaging · 2025Article
- How to identify respiratory pathogens in primary health care - a review on the benefits, prospects and pitfalls in using point of care tests.Infection · 2025Review
- Extended Roles in Healthcare Delivery: What Is the Role of the Laboratory in Addressing Ethnicity-Related Healthcare Disparities?Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Dutch participatory surveillance framework for evaluating evolutionary changes on SARS-CoV-2 affecting rapid diagnostic test sensitivity in 2022 - 2023.BMC infectious diseases · 2025Article
- Feasibility and acceptability of self-testing for COVID-19 in Ethiopia: a mixed-methods study.IJTLD open · 2025Article
- Comparison of the analytical and clinical sensitivities of 34 rapid antigen tests with prevalent SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK.Microbiology spectrum · 2025Article
- Quantum-enhanced nanodiamond rapid test advances early SARS-CoV-2 antigen detection in clinical diagnostics.Nature communications · 2025Article
138 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
WHO recommends a minimum of 80% sensitivity and 97% specificity for antigen-detection rapid diagnostic tests (Ag-RDTs), which can be used for patients with symptoms consistent with COVID-19. However, after the acute phase when viral load decreases, use of Ag-RDTs might lead to high rates of false negatives, suggesting that the tests should be replaced by a combination of molecular and serological tests. When the likelihood of having COVID-19 is low, such as for asymptomatic individuals in low prevalence settings, for travel, return to schools, workplaces, and mass gatherings, Ag-RDTs with high negative predictive values can be used with confidence to rule out infection. For those who test positive in low prevalence settings, the high false positive rate means that mitigation strategies, such as molecular testing to confirm positive results, are needed. Ag-RDTs, when used appropriately, are promising tools for scaling up testing and ensuring that patient management and public health measures can be implemented without delay.
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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.