SynthesisClinical medicine (London, England)2023
Influence of seasonal and operator variations on diagnostic accuracy of lateral flow devices during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Clinical medicine (London, England), 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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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.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 7 citations in OpenAlex.
- Magnetically Retrievable Platinum Nanoreporters for Efficient Lateral Flow Immunoassay in Complex Bio-Samples.Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) · 2026Article
- Biosensors and Bioassays for the Medical Detection ofCurrent medicinal chemistry · 2025Review
- Learning from the past rather than living in it.Clinical medicine (London, England) · 2023Article
- Customizably designed multibodies neutralize SARS-CoV-2 in a variant-insensitive manner.Frontiers in immunology · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundLateral flow tests (LFT) are point-of-care rapid antigen tests that allow isolation and control of disease outbreaks through convenient, practical testing. However, studies have shown significant variation in their diagnostic accuracy. We conducted a systematic review of the diagnostic accuracy of LFTs for the detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) to identify potential factors affecting their performance.
methodsA systematic search of online databases was carried out to identify studies assessing the sensitivity and specificity of LFTs compared with polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests. Data were extracted and used to calculate pooled sensitivity and specificity. Meta-regression analysis was conducted to identify covariates influencing diagnostic accuracy.
resultsIn total, 76 articles with 108,820 test results were identified for analysis. Pooled sensitivity and specificity were 72% (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.68-0.76) and 100% (95% CI: 0.99-1.00), respectively. Staff operation of the LFT showed a statistically significant increase in sensitivity (p=0.04) and specificity (p=0.001) compared with self-operation by the test subjects. The use of LFTs in symptomatic patient subgroups also resulted in higher test sensitivity.
conclusionLFTs display good sensitivity and extremely good specificity for SARS-CoV-2 antigen detection; they become more sensitive in patients with symptoms and when performed by trained professionals.
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