Diagnostic value of BinaxNOW antigen card for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2.

Rapid laboratory detection is remarkably crucial to diagnosing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection, due to whose outbreak causes to the world pandemic. The BinaxNOW antigen card (BinaxNOW) is a simple, effective, and cheap tool to detect severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The meta-analysis in this study was conducted to evaluate the diagnostic performance of BinaxNOW for SARS-CoV-2. The researchers independently retrieved the related databases (PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Library) before May 1st, 2021, and extracted the relevant data based on the early inclusion/exclusion criterion. Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Study-2 was used to evaluate the quality of the enrolled studies. Stata 16.0, Meta-DiSc 1.4, and Review Manager 5.3 were used to generate analytical data for the statistical analysis. 59 sets of data were identified from the seven studies included in this meta-analysis. The combined sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio, negative likelihood ratio, diagnostic odds ratio, and their 95% confidence intervals were 0.77 (0.76 to 0.79), 0.99 (0.99 to 0.99), 65.72 (48.23 to 89.56), 0.23 (0.19 to 0.28), and 461.10 (281.55 to 755.13), respectively. The area under curve was 0.9910 in the summary receiver operating characteristic curve. BinaxNOW is beneficial for symptomatic patients' onset within 7 days. CT value and testing site may be the heterogeneity source of BinaxNOW accuracy. Moreover, this technology has an efficient performance for diagnosing COVID-19, especially in patients with heavy viral load. BinaxNOW may become a practical tool for large-scale or at-home use for COVID-19 in the post-pandemic era.Highlights● Pooled sensitivity with 0.77 and specificity with 0.99 in the BinaxNOW assay.● CT value and testing site may be the heterogeneity source of BinaxNOW accuracy.● BinaxNOW is beneficial for symptomatic patients' onset within 7 days.● BinaxNOW may become a practical tool for large-scale or at-home use for COVID-19.

Associations of Cord Blood Lipids with Childhood Adiposity at the Age of Three Years: A Prospective Birth Cohort Study.

We aimed to examine the associations between cord blood lipids and childhood adiposity and to investigate whether these associations vary across birth weight categories (small for gestational age (SGA), appropriate for gestational age (AGA) and large for gestational age (LGA)) in 1306 infants in the Born in Guangzhou Cohort Study, China. Adiposity outcomes at the age of three years included z-scores of weight-for-length/height (WFLZ), body mass index (BMIZ), subscapular (SSTZ) and triceps skinfold thickness (TSTZ), and the sum of skinfold thicknesses (SSFTZ). Cord blood triglycerides (TG) levels were negatively associated with WFLZ and BMIZ, whereas high density lipoprotein (HDL) levels were positively associated with WFLZ, BMIZ, TSTZ and SSFTZ. These associations were attenuated after adjustment for birth weight. Stratified analyses revealed that total cholesterol (TC) and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels were positively associated with childhood adiposity indicators among AGA infants but tended to be negatively associated with the adiposity indicators among LGA infants (p values for interaction <0.05). Furthermore, TG levels appeared to be positively associated with adiposity indicators among SGA infants but negatively associated with the outcomes among LGA infants (p values for interaction <0.05). Cord blood lipids levels might be associated with childhood adiposity, and these associations appear to differ across different birth weight categories. If confirmed in future studies, our findings suggest that individualized management plans might be warranted in preventing obesity.

Evaluation of CRISPR-Based Assays for Rapid Detection of SARS-CoV-2: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

PURPOSE: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the pathogen of coronavirus disease 2019. Diagnostic methods based on the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) have been developed to detect SARS-CoV-2 rapidly. Therefore, a systematic review and meta-analysis were performed to assess the diagnostic accuracy of CRISPR for detecting SARS-CoV-2 infection. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Studies published before August 2021 were retrieved from four databases, using the keywords "SARS-CoV-2" and "CRISPR." Data were collected from these publications, and the sensitivity, specificity, negative likelihood ratio (NLR), positive likelihood ratio (PLR), and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) were calculated. The summary receiver operating characteristic curve was plotted for analysis with MetaDiSc 1.4. The Stata 15.0 software was used to draw Deeks' funnel plots to evaluate publication bias. RESULTS: We performed a pooled analysis of 38 independent studies shown in 30 publications. The reference standard was reverse transcription-quantitative PCR. The results indicated that the sensitivity of CRISPR-based methods for diagnosis was 0.94 (95% CI 0.93-0.95), the specificity was 0.98 (95% CI 0.97-0.99), the PLR was 34.03 (95% CI 20.81-55.66), the NLR was 0.08 (95% CI 0.06-0.10), and the DOR was 575.74 (95% CI 382.36-866.95). The area under the curve was 0.9894. CONCLUSION: Studies indicate that a diagnostic method based on CRISPR has high sensitivity and specificity. Therefore, this would be a potential diagnostic tool to improve the accuracy of SARS-CoV-2 detection.

Detection performance of PCR for Legionella pneumophila in environmental samples: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Legionellosis remains a public health problem. The most common diagnostic method to detect Legionella pneumophila (L. pneumophila) is culture. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a fast and accurate method for this detection in environmental samples. METHODS: Four databases were searched for studies that evaluated the detection efficiency of PCR in L. pneumophila. The quality evaluation was conducted using Review Manager 5.3. We used Meta-DiSc 1.4 software and the Stata 15.0 software to create forest plots, a meta-regression, a bivariate boxplot and a Deeks' funnel plot. RESULTS: A total of 18 four-fold tables from 16 studies were analysed. The overall pooled sensitivity and specificity of PCR was 94% and 72%, respectively. The positive likelihood ratio (RLR) and negative likelihood ratio (NLR) was 2.73 and 0.12, respectively. The result of the diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) was 22.85 and the area under the curve (AUC) was 0.7884. CONCLUSION: Establishing a laboratory diagnostic tool for L. pneumophila detection is important for epidemiological studies. In this work, PCR demonstrated a promising diagnostic accuracy for L. pneumophila.

Diagnostic value of Lipoarabinomannan antigen for detecting Mycobacterium tuberculosis in adults and children with or without HIV infection.

OBJECTIVES: Even today, tuberculosis (TB) remains a leading public health problem; yet, the current diagnostic methods still have a few shortcomings. Lipoarabinomannan (LAM) provides an opportunity for TB diagnosis, and urine LAM detection seems to have a promising and widely applicable prospect. DESIGN OR METHODS: Four databases were systematically searched for eligible studies, and the quality of the studies was evaluated using the quality assessment of diagnostic accuracy studies-2 (QUADAS-2). Graphs and tables were created to show sensitivity, specificity, likelihood ratios, diagnostic odds ratio (DOR), the area under the curve (AUC), and so on. RESULTS: Based on the included 67 studies, the pooled sensitivity of urine LAM was 48% and specificity was 89%. In the subgroup analyses, the FujiLAM test had higher sensitivity (69%) and specificity (92%). Furthermore, among patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), 50% of TB patients were diagnosed using a urine LAM test. Besides, the CD4+ cell count was inversely proportional to the sensitivity. CONCLUSIONS: Urine LAM is a promising diagnostic test for TB, particularly using the FujiLAM in HIV-infected adults whose CD4+ cell count is ≤100 per µl. Besides, the urine LAM test shows various sensitivities and specificities in different subgroups in terms of age, HIV infection status, CD4+ cell count, and testing method.

[Effect of occlusal thickness design on the fracture resistance of endocrowns restored with lithium disilicate ceramic and zirconia].

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate the effect of occlusal thickness design on fracture resistance of endocrowns restored with lithium disilicate ceramic and zirconia. METHODS: A total of 24 artificial first mandibular molars were randomly divided into four groups with six teeth in each group as follows: group lithium disilicate ceramic-2 mm (lithium disilicate ceramic, with an occlusal thickness of 2 mm and a retainer length of 4 mm); group lithium disilicate ceramic-4 mm (lithium disilicate ceramic, with an occlusal thickness of 4 mm and a retainer length of 2 mm); group zirconia-2 mm (zirconia, with an occlusal thickness of 2 mm and a retainer length of 4 mm); and group zirconia-4 mm (zirconia, with an occlusal thickness of 4 mm and a retainer length of 2 mm). After adhesive cementation (RelyX Ultimate Clicker), all specimens were subjected to thermocycling (10 000 cycles). The specimens were subjected to fracture resistance testing at a 135° angle to the teeth at a crosshead speed of 0.5 mm·min⁻¹ in a universal testing machine. Data were analyzed with ANOVA and Tukey's HSD test by SPSS 15.0. The failure modes were classified. RESULTS: The fracture resistances of groups lithium disilicate ceramic-2 mm, lithium disilicate ceramic-4 mm, zirconia-2 mm, and zirconia-4 mm were (890.54±83.41), (2 320.87±728.57), (2 258.05±557.66), and (3 847.70±495.99) N respectively. Group zirconia-4 mm had the highest fracture resistance, whereas group lithium disilicate ceramic-2 mm had the lowest. CONCLUSIONS: The fracture resistance of molar endocrown with zirconia is higher than that with lithium disilicate ceramic. Increasing the occlusal thickness can improve the fracture resistance but increase the risk of fracture of abutment.