TY - JOUR
T1 - Point-by-Point Progress
T2 - Gonorrhea Point of Care Tests
AU - Gaydos, Charlotte A.
AU - Melendez, Johan H.
N1 - Funding Information:
This paper was funded by the NIH (U54EB007958, NIBIB, NIH; U-01 068613, NIAID, NIH; R01AI138978, NIAID, NIH)
Funding Information:
C Gaydos has received research grant support from NIH as noted above and from Hologic, Cepheid, Becton Dickenson, SpeeDX, Abbott, Roche. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2020/8/2
Y1 - 2020/8/2
N2 - Introduction: Point-of-care (POC) tests for Neisseria gonorrhoeae (Ng) are urgently needed to control the gonorrhea epidemic, so patients can receive immediate diagnoses and treatment. While the advent of nucleic acid amplification tests (NAATs) has improved the accuracy of Ng identification, very few POC assays are able to provide results of such tests at the clinical visit. Additionally, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) presents a unique treatment challenge for Ng. Areas covered: This review notes that older POC tests have lower sensitivity for Ng, compared to the currently-available NAATs, and are not adequate for the current demand for high sensitivity. Promising newer assays, which can be used at the POC are covered. This review also includes data about clinicians’ and patients’ acceptability and expectations of POC tests for Ng, testing of extragenital specimens, pooling studies, as well as their impact clinically, and use in low-resource settings. Expert opinion: The ability to use POC tests to identify and immediately treat Ng infections at the patient encounter offers many benefits and opportunities. POC tests for Ng are currently available, but not widely used especially in low-resource settings. Further development of POC tests with AMR testing capacity is needed to help guide antimicrobial stewardship.
AB - Introduction: Point-of-care (POC) tests for Neisseria gonorrhoeae (Ng) are urgently needed to control the gonorrhea epidemic, so patients can receive immediate diagnoses and treatment. While the advent of nucleic acid amplification tests (NAATs) has improved the accuracy of Ng identification, very few POC assays are able to provide results of such tests at the clinical visit. Additionally, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) presents a unique treatment challenge for Ng. Areas covered: This review notes that older POC tests have lower sensitivity for Ng, compared to the currently-available NAATs, and are not adequate for the current demand for high sensitivity. Promising newer assays, which can be used at the POC are covered. This review also includes data about clinicians’ and patients’ acceptability and expectations of POC tests for Ng, testing of extragenital specimens, pooling studies, as well as their impact clinically, and use in low-resource settings. Expert opinion: The ability to use POC tests to identify and immediately treat Ng infections at the patient encounter offers many benefits and opportunities. POC tests for Ng are currently available, but not widely used especially in low-resource settings. Further development of POC tests with AMR testing capacity is needed to help guide antimicrobial stewardship.
KW - Neisseria gonorrhoeae
KW - antimicrobial resistance
KW - diagnostics
KW - point-of-care tests
KW - sexually transmitted infections
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U2 - 10.1080/14737159.2020.1778467
DO - 10.1080/14737159.2020.1778467
M3 - Review article
C2 - 32500764
AN - SCOPUS:85087461698
SN - 1473-7159
VL - 20
SP - 803
EP - 813
JO - Expert Review of Molecular Diagnostics
JF - Expert Review of Molecular Diagnostics
IS - 8
ER -