Objective:

To compare the isothermal molecular screening techniques CPA and RT-LAMP, against the gold standard test, reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR), and to determine its agreement.

Materials and Methods:

Paired comparative case-control study. For the evaluation of the CPA method, 70 cases and 130 controls were used, while for RT-LAMP, 30 cases and 70 controls were used. The sensitivity and specificity of both tests were calculated. Subsequently, the bias-corrected Kappa index was calculated by resampling.

Results:

Both techniques have adequate and equivalent values of sensitivity (RT-LAMP: 82.8%, CPA: 83%) and specificity (RT-LAMP and CPA: 91.5%), as well as a high concordance (88%), and Kappa-index (0.72).

Conclusion:

Both isothermal molecular screening techniques are suitable for SARS-CoV-2 screening, with a similar sensitivity and specificity.

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