A pooled analysis of the LAMP assay for the detection of Neisseria meningitidis

BACKGROUND: Neisseria meningitidis is a major cause of bacterial meningitis, and these infections are associated with a high mortality rate. Rapid and reliable diagnosis of bacterial meningitis is critical in clinical practice. However, this disease often occurs in economically depressed areas, so an inexpensive, easy to use, and accurate technology is needed. We performed a pooled-analysis to assess the potential of the recently developed loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assay for detection of meningococcus. METHODS: Pubmed, Embase, and Web of Science were searched to identify original studies that used the LAMP assay to detect meningococcus. After pooling of data, the sensitivity and specificity were calculated, a summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC) curve was determined, and the area under the SROC curve was computed to determine diagnostic accuracy. Publication bias was assessed using Deek’s funnel plot. RESULTS: We examined 14 studies within 6 publications. The LAMP assay had high sensitivity (94%) and specificity (100%) in the detection of meningococcus in all studies. The area under the SROC curve (0.980) indicated high overall accuracy of the LAMP assay. There was no evidence of publication bias. DISCUSSION: The LAMP assay has accuracy comparable to bacterial culture and PCR for detection of meningococcus, but is less expensive and easier to use. We suggest the adoption of the LAMP assay to detect meningococcus, especially in economically depressed areas.