Nasal biomarker testing to rule out viral respiratory infection and triage samples: a test performance study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed an urgent need for practical screening tests to rule out respiratory virus infection, both for managing outbreaks and for routine screening in high-risk settings. PCR is the gold standard test for respiratory virus diagnosis but requires specialised equipment, uses different assays for each virus, and often excludes emerging viruses. The goal of this study was to evaluate a pan-viral host biomarker to rule out respiratory virus infection. We used CXCL10, a cytokine induced in the nasal mucosa in response to diverse respiratory viruses.

Methods

We compared immunoassay for CXCL10 to respiratory virus PCR panel results in 1088 nasopharyngeal samples from adults and children with an overall viral prevalence of 32.6% by PCR. Using this da

SUBMITTER: Amat JAR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12216728 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature