Use of saliva-based qPCR diagnostics for the accurate, rapid, and inexpensive detection of strep throat.

Objectives: Outpatient health care facilities are essential for quickly diagnosing common infectious diseases such as bacterial and viral pharyngitis. The only form of pharyngitis requiring antibiotics is strep throat (ST); however, antibiotic prescription rates are much higher than ST prevalence, suggesting antibiotics are being inappropriately prescribed. Current rapid ST diagnostics may be contributing to this problem due to the low sensitivity and variable specificity of these tests.