Rendimiento diagnóstico de las muestras de saliva para detectar SARS-CoV2: umbrella review

Abstract

There is a clinical and research need in the health field for tests for the detection of the SARS-Cov2 virus. In the search, it is intended to minimize sampling protocol, examination costs and discomfort. Saliva samples have been protocolized as a diagnostic means for this purpose. Objective: to carry out an Umbrella Review type study to evaluate the diagnostic performance of the tests to determine SARS-Cov2 through saliva, as well as its clinical effectiveness, being evaluated according to scientific evidence through publications of studies such as systematic reviews and meta-analyzes. Materials and methods: An exhaustive bibliographic search was carried out using search equations in the PubMed, Embase, Scielo, Scopus and academic Google databases, where publications from the years 2020 and 2021 were considered. Initially, a total of 216 articles were retrieved. and after filtering, where inclusion and exclusion criteria were considered, such as year of publication, language, and topic of interest, 13 studies were retrieved for their respective analysis through the application of the AMSTAR checklist. Results: it was obtained that the SARS-Cov2 virus detection tests through saliva samples have an average sensitivity that ranges between 80-97.7% (95% CI, 0.83-0.89) and a specificity between 95-97 % (95% CI: 89.5–98.8). the sensitivity and specificity values ​​of the NPS and Saliva test are relatively similar for symptomatic cases with high viral load and quite acceptable for asymptomatic patients with low viral load. Conclusion: These results demonstrated that tests using saliva samples have a high diagnostic accuracy and effectiveness for the detection of the SARS-Cov2 virus if they are tests of saliva with pharyngeal rinsing.