Rapid comparative evaluation of SARS-CoV-2 rapid point-of-care antigen tests

PURPOSE: The objective of this study was to develop a scalable approach for direct comparison of the analytical sensitivities of commercially available SARS-CoV-2 antigen point-of-care tests (AgPOCTs) to rapidly identify poor-performing products. METHODS: We present a methodology for quick assessment of the sensitivity of SARS-CoV-2 AgPOCTs suitable for quality evaluation of many different products. We established reference samples with high, medium, and low SARS-CoV-2 viral loads along with a SARS-CoV-2 negative control sample. Test samples were used to semi-quantitatively assess the analytical sensitivities of 32 different commercial AgPOCTs in a head-to-head comparison. RESULTS: Among 32 SARS-CoV-2 AgPOCTs tested, we observe sensitivity differences across a broad range of viral loads (9.8 × 10(8) to 1.8 × 10(5) SARS-CoV-2 genome copies per ml). 23 AgPOCTs detected the Ct25 test sample (1.6 × 10(6) copies/ml), while only five tests detected the Ct28 test sample (1.8 × 10(5) copies/ml). In the low-range of analytical sensitivity, we found three saliva spit tests only delivering positive results for the Ct21 sample (2.7 × 10(7) copies/ml). Comparison with published data supports our AgPOCT ranking. Importantly, we identified an AgPOCT widely offered, which did not reliably recognize the sample with the highest viral load (Ct16 test sample with 9.8 × 10(8) copies/ml) leading to serious doubts about its usefulness in SARS-CoV-2 diagnostics. CONCLUSION: The results show that the rapid sensitivity assessment procedure presented here provides useful estimations on the analytical sensitivities of 32 AgPOCTs and identified a widely-spread AgPOCT with concerningly low sensitivity. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s15010-022-01810-1.