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The following is a summary of “Evaluation of 5 Polymerase Chain Reaction Assays for the Detection of Mpox Virus,” published in the March 2024 issue of Infectious Diseases by Fattouh et al.
In 2022, the mpox virus (MPXV) spread beyond its endemic areas, leading to increased diagnostic testing worldwide.
Researchers conducted a retrospective study testing the performance of 5 real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests to find MPXV during the 2022 outbreak.
They used clinical samples from Ontario, Canada, and tested them on five different PCR assays: RealStar Orthopoxyvirus, FlexStar Monkeypox (Altona Diagnostics), Novaplex MPXV (Seegene), VIASURE Monkeypox virus Real-Time PCR Reagents (CerTest Biotec), and a lab-made test. The efficacy of these tests worked by evaluating positive percent agreement (PPA), negative percent agreement (NPA), relative limit of detection (LOD), and precision. The MPXV lineages were determined with an amplicon-based whole-genome sequencing (WGS) assay.
The results showed that 65 positive and 30 negative swabs were collected from various anatomic sites. All assays showed 100% NPA (95% CI, 88.4%/88.1%-100%) and PPA ranging between 92.2% (82.7%-97.4%) to 96.9% (89.3%-99.6%). The LOD and precision were comparable across assays, with less than 3% variation. WGS analysis identified 6 lineages, all in subclade llb.
Investigators concluded that the tests showed excellent PPA, NPA, LOD, and precision. However, it is crucial to keep monitoring to detect any new MPXV strains or mutations.
Source: academic.oup.com/jid/article-abstract/229/Supplement_2/S156/7635225
