N Engl J Med: Is it feasible for patients to sample themselves for nucleic acid testing? NEJM publishes a detailed data comparison.

In outbreak control, nucleic acid detection is an important part.
recentdays, china's domestic individual cities appear a new round of outbreaks, large-scale nucleic acid testing sampling site also let us feel the hard work of health care workers again.
, is it feasible for patients to sample themselves? Previously, in a study led by Yuan Guoyong, patients were asked to collect saliva samples from the back of their mouth and throat under the guidance of nurses, and the research data also supported the feasibility of virus load monitoring with such saliva samples.
a new newsletter in the New England Journal of Medicine explores the issue with more detailed data, compared samples taken from multiple parts of the patient with nasopharyngeal swabs taken by health care providers.
study was conducted at five outpatient clinics in Washington state and included 530 patients with symptoms of upper respiratory tract infections.
these patients, guided by the instructions, collect their own tongue, nose and midnasal swabs, and then the nasopharyngeal swab swathed again by the health care provider.
next, the team compared the sensitivity of the two samples used for nucleic acid testing (true positive rate, no miss).
compared 501 cases at the same time collected tongue and nasopharyngeal swab patient data: 450 patients consistently negative swabs, 44 patients consistently positive swabs;
compared with 498 cases of nose and nasopharyngeal swab patients at the same time collected data: 447 patients consistently negative swabs, 47 patients consistently positive swabs;
compared with 504 cases, the simultaneous collection of patient data: 452 patients consistently negative swabs, 50 patients consistently positive swabs;
compared the nasopharyngeal swabs collected by health care providers, the sensitivity of the tongue, nose and midnasal swabs collected by these patients reached 89.8% (unilateral 97.5% CI, 78.2%-100.0%), 94.0% (unilateral 97.5% CI, 83.8%-100.0%) and 96.2% (97.5% CI, 87.0-10.00%)
virus load data suggestthat the viral load in the nasal nail area may be higher than at the nasopharyngeal part, while the viral load at the nose and nasopharyngeal parts is similar. Based on these data, patients' self-collected tongue, nose and midnasal swabs are acceptable and clinically useful, the
team said.
patients' self-sampling reduces the risk of exposure and provides a more comfortable patient experience.
, of course, the team also acknowledges that the study is only conducted locally and that it does not meet the perfect standard of standard testing, but it provides a reference for the feasibility of sampling.
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