The comparison of nucleic acid detections between throat swab and stool specimens in SARS-CoV-2 infection patients

Abstract

Objective The nucleic acid detections is 'golden standard’ for the novel coronavirus infection confirmation. In the present study,we evaluated the positive rate of nucleic acid detections in throat swab and stool specimens of patients, our study will provide a reference to the clinical laboratory diagnosis. Methods Forty-one confirmed patients were enrolled in our study, their throat swab and stool specimens were collected for detections. All the samples were determined by a fluorescence quantitative PCR method. The positive rate and concordance were evaluated in these two types of samples. Results Among those 41 patients, 9 of them had positive results in throat swab samples,accounted for 30%. Five patients had positive results in stool samples, accounted for 12.2%. Only two patients had concordant positive results. Kappa tests showed that theconcordance was poor, kappa indexwas 0.153. Conclusion The nucleic acid detection in stool specimen is a complemental method for respiratory tract samples. It can contribute to the elevation of positive rates in patients. In addition, there is potential infectiousness in stool of patients, it may be a new transmission way for the infection. Key words: Novel coronavirus; Reverse transcriptase polymerase chain Reaction; Throat swab; Stool