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Prospective, multi-site evaluation of the Cepheid Xpert Xpress CoV-2 plus test on nasal and nasopharyngeal swabs
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Prospective, multi-site evaluation of the Cepheid Xpert Xpress CoV-2 plus test on nasal and nasopharyngeal swabs

Alexander L. Greninger, Allan Larcena, Amrish Patel, Brian Webster, Christina Ulen, Dallas F. Green, Dana King, Deepesh Rubin Patel, Erin McElvania, Glenn Harnett, …
Journal of clinical microbiology, Vol.62(12), e01219-24
12/11/2024
DOI: 10.1128/jcm.01219-24
PMCID: PMC11633094
PMID: 39503494
url
https://doi.org/10.1128/jcm.01219-24View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) continues its largely aseasonal spread with millions of cases per year. Highly sensitive, point-of-care testing is critical for rapid detection of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases and initiation of antiviral therapy to avert adverse health outcomes and reduce onward transmission of the virus. While hundreds of COVID-19 diagnostics received emergency use authorization from the FDA during the pandemic, significantly fewer have navigated the course to FDA clearance or approval. Here, we determined the clinical performance of the Cepheid Xpert Xpress CoV-2 plus for detection of SARS-CoV-2 in 3,750 anterior nasal swab (NS) specimens and nasopharyngeal swab (NPS) from 32 sites in comparison to the FDA-authorized BioFire Respiratory Panel 2.1. Three-quarters of specimens collected were tested on the Xpert Xpress CoV-2 plus in the point-of-care setting. Overall positive percent agreement (PPA) was 98.1% (95% CI: 96.7%–98.9%) and negative percent agreement (NPA) was 98.3% (97.7%–98.7%). Performance of the Xpert Xpress CoV-2 plus was slightly improved in NS compared to NPS specimens, with PPA of 99.3% versus 97.0% (Fisher’s exact test, P = 0.06) and NPA of 98.3% versus 98.2% (P = 0.89), respectively. Assay PPA was similar between untrained and trained users (98.7% vs 97.3%, P = 0.75), while NPA was slightly improved for untrained users (99.0% vs 97.6%, P = 0.0003). This study showed that Cepheid Xpert Xpress COV-2 plus is highly sensitive and specific/has high PPA and NPA for detection of SARS-CoV-2 from both NS and NPS specimens.IMPORTANCESevere acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) continues to cause millions of infections and tens of thousands of deaths per year in the United States. While the FDA authorized hundreds of SARS-CoV-2 tests during the public health emergency, significantly fewer have made the transition to being cleared or approved. There continues to be a need for FDA-authorized point-of-care SARS-CoV-2 testing that can be performed by untrained users. We conducted a large prospective study of the Cepheid Xpert Xpress CoV-2 plus test for detection of SARS-CoV-2 in both nasal and nasopharyngeal swabs by trained and untrained users. The assay demonstrated excellent clinical performance characteristics and, as a result of this study, was cleared by the FDA.
 Virology SARS-CoV-2 point-of-care Cepheid clinical study rapid COVID-19 Xpert Xpress

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