Volta
Clinical accuracy of instrument-based SARS-CoV-2 antigen diagnostic tests: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Abstract Background During the COVID-19 pandemic, antigen diagnostic tests were frequently used for screening, triage, and diagnosis because they are faster and less expensive than molecular tests, despite being less sensitive terms of analytical and clinical performance. Novel instrument-based antigen tests (iAg tests) hold the promise of outperforming their instrument-free, visually-read counterparts. Here, we provide a systematic review and meta-analysis of the SARS-CoV-2 iAg tests’ clinical accuracy. Methods We systematically searched MEDLINE (via PubMed), Web of Science, medRxiv, and bioRxiv for articles published before November 7th, 2022, evaluating the accuracy of iAg tests for SARS-CoV-2 detection. We performed a random effects meta-analysis to estimate sensitivity and specificity and used the QUADAS-2 tool to assess study quality and risk of bias. …