A monocentric diagnostic study published in Scientific Reports depicted that for SARS-CoV-2 detection, a rapid and connected reverse-transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) test on self-collected saliva is reliable. Researchers aimed to explore the diagnostic performances of RT-LAMP assay on symptomatic and asymptomatic people in an ambulatory screening.

Collection of saliva and nasopharyngeal swabs was done from 443 outpatients and tested by a reference standard test, that is, reverse-transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). A total of 71 people (16.0%) were positive by salivary and/or nasopharyngeal RT-qPCR. The sensitivity and specificity of salivary RT-LAMP are shown in Table 1:

For both asymptomatic and symptomatic people, the performances were similar. Furthermore, SARS-CoV-2 genetic variants were assessed and no dominant mutation in the RT-LAMP primer region was noted during the study period. Thus, the salivary RT-LAMP assay is an operational substitute for coronavirus detection in view of safe economic and social reopening.