Salivette® Cortisol versus oropharyngeal swabbing for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Background: Detecting severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) by naso/oropharyngeal swabbing may expose health-care workers to the virus and is technically challenging. The Salivette® is an alternative saliva-collection device with an oral cotton swab containing citric acid to stimulate saliva production, which may have an unpleasant taste. We present a pilot study comparing the Salivette® Cortisol (SC), which uses a synthetic swab without citric acid, against oropharyngeal swabbing for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 by reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR).

High Expression Levels of miR-21-5p in Younger Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients Are Associated with Mortality and Critical Disease.

Unlabelled: In COVID-19, critical disease and invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV) increase the risk of death, mainly in patients over 60 years of age.

Objectives: To find the relationship between miR-21-5p and miR-146a-5p in terms of the severity, IMV, and mortality in hospitalized COVID-19 patients younger than 55 years of age.

Methods: The patients were stratified according to disease severity using the IDSA/WHO criteria for severe and critical COVID-19 and subclassified into critical non-survivors and critical survivors.

SARS-CoV-2 Direct Detection Without RNA Isolation With Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP) and CRISPR-Cas12.

As to date, more than 49 million confirmed cases of Coronavirus Disease 19 (COVID-19) have been reported worldwide. Current diagnostic protocols use qRT-PCR for viral RNA detection, which is expensive and requires sophisticated equipment, trained personnel and previous RNA extraction. For this reason, we need a faster, direct and more versatile detection method for better epidemiological management of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Expression of Surfactant Protein D Distinguishes Severe Pandemic Influenza A(H1N1) from Coronavirus Disease 2019.

The differentiation between influenza and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) could constitute a diagnostic challenge during the ongoing winter owing to their clinical similitude. Thus, novel biomarkers are required to enable making this distinction. Here, we evaluated whether the surfactant protein D (SP-D), a collectin produced at the alveolar epithelium with known immune properties, was useful to differentiate pandemic influenza A(H1N1) from COVID-19 in critically ill patients.