ArticleBMJ (Clinical research ed.)2021
Diagnostic accuracy of rapid antigen tests in asymptomatic and presymptomatic close contacts of individuals with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection: cross sectional study.
Article in BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 52 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.
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Who cites it
52 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 99 citations in OpenAlex.
- Rapid, point-of-care antigen tests for diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2025Pooled it
- Rapid, point-of-care antigen tests for diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2022Pooled it
- Accuracy of rapid point-of-care antigen-based diagnostics for SARS-CoV-2: An updated systematic review and meta-analysis with meta-regression analyzing influencing factors.PLoS medicine · 2022Pooled it
- Evaluation of the diagnostic accuracy of COVID-19 antigen tests: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Journal of the Chinese Medical Association : JCMA · 2021Pooled it
- Accuracy of novel antigen rapid diagnostics for SARS-CoV-2: A living systematic review and meta-analysis.PLoS medicine · 2021Pooled it
- Accuracy and ease-of-use of seven point-of-care SARS-CoV-2 antigen-detecting tests: A multi-centre clinical evaluation.EBioMedicine · 2022Trial
- Preemptive rapid antigen test as an emergency measure during coronavirus disease 2019 outbreaks.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Longitudinal voice monitoring in a decentralized Bring Your Own Device trial for respiratory illness detection.NPJ digital medicine · 2025Article
- Wide Real-Life Data Support Reduced Sensitivity of Antigen Tests for Omicron SARS-CoV-2 Infections.Viruses · 2024Article
- Model for Interpreting Discordant SARS-CoV-2 Diagnostic Test Results.Emerging infectious diseases · 2024Article
- The epidemiological impact of digital and manual contact tracing on the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in the Netherlands: Empirical evidence.PLOS digital health · 2023Article
- A lightweight CORONA-NET for COVID-19 detection in X-ray images.Expert systems with applications · 2023Article
- Analytical sensitivity of COVID-19 rapid antigen tests: A case for a robust reference standard.Talanta open · 2023Article
- COVID-19 Screening Score for Patients without Acute Respiratory Symptoms Undergoing Emergency Medical Procedures in Indonesia.The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene · 2023Article
- A quantitative systems pharmacology model of the pathophysiology and treatment of COVID-19 predicts optimal timing of pharmacological interventions.NPJ systems biology and applications · 2023Article
- Diagnostic accuracy of SARS-CoV-2 rapid antigen self-tests in asymptomatic individuals in the omicron period: a cross-sectional study.Clinical microbiology and infection : the official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases · 2023Article
- Extreme differences in SARS-CoV-2 viral loads among respiratory specimen types during presumed pre-infectious and infectious periods.PNAS nexus · 2023Article
- Evaluation of Four Rapid Antigen Tests for the Detection of SARS-CoV-2 Infection with Nasopharyngeal Swabs.Biomedicines · 2023Article
- Detection of SARS-CoV-2 in Air and on Surfaces in Rooms of Infected Nursing Home Residents.Annals of work exposures and health · 2023Article
- A Metasynthesis and Meta-analysis of the Impact and Diagnostic Safety of COVID-19 Symptom Agnostic Rapid Testing in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Protocol for a Systematic Review.JMIR research protocols · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
18 authors at 7 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo assess the diagnostic test accuracy of two rapid antigen tests in asymptomatic and presymptomatic close contacts of people with SARS-CoV-2 infection on day 5 after exposure.
designProspective cross sectional study.
settingFour public health service covid-19 test sites in the Netherlands.
participants4274 consecutively included close contacts (identified through test-and-trace programme or contact tracing app) aged 16 years or older and asymptomatic for covid-19 when requesting a test.
main outcome measuresSensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values of Veritor System (Beckton Dickinson) and Biosensor (Roche Diagnostics) rapid antigen tests, with reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing as reference standard. The viral load cut-off above which 95% of people with a positive RT-PCR test result were virus culture positive was used as a proxy of infectiousness.
resultsOf 2678 participants tested with Veritor, 233 (8.7%) had a RT-PCR confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection of whom 149 were also detected by the rapid antigen test (sensitivity 63.9%, 95% confidence interval 57.4% to 70.1%). Of 1596 participants tested with Biosensor, 132 (8.3%) had a RT-PCR confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection of whom 83 were detected by the rapid antigen test (sensitivity 62.9%, 54.0% to 71.1%). In those who were still asymptomatic at the time of sampling, sensitivity was 58.7% (51.1% to 66.0%) for Veritor (n=2317) and 59.4% (49.2% to 69.1%) for Biosensor (n=1414), and in those who developed symptoms were 84.2% (68.7% to 94.0%; n=219) for Veritor and 73.3% (54.1% to 87.7%; n=158) for Biosensor. When a viral load cut-off was applied for infectiouness (≥5.2 log10 SARS-CoV-2 E gene copies/mL), the overall sensitivity was 90.1% (84.2% to 94.4%) for Veritor and 86.8% (78.1% to 93.0%) for Biosensor, and 88.1% (80.5% to 93.5%) for Veritor and 85.1% (74.3% to 92.6%) for Biosensor, among those who remained asymptomatic throughout. Specificities were >99%, and positive and negative predictive values were >90% and >95%, for both rapid antigen tests in all analyses.
conclusionsThe sensitivities of both rapid antigen tests in asymptomatic and presymptomatic close contacts tested on day 5 onwards after close contact with an index case were more than 60%, increasing to more than 85% after a viral load cut-off was applied as a proxy for infectiousness.
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