Scientific Library

Rhinoswab Junior

A novel anterior nasal swab to detect respiratory viruses: a prospective study of diagnostic sensitivity and specificity

BMC Pediatrics
2023

Detection of respiratory viruses requires testing of the upper respiratory tract to obtain specimens for analysis. However, nasal and throat swabs can cause discomfort and procedural anxiety in children. Respiratory sampling methods which are accurate and less invasive are needed.

Tosif, S., Lee ,L., Nguyen, J., Overmars, I., Selman, C., Grobler, A.C., McMinn, A., Waller, G., McNab, S., Jarvis, T., Steer, A., Babl F., Daley A., Crawford, N.
Rhinoswab Junior

Less Invasive SARS-COV-2 testing for children: A comparison of saliva and a novel anterior nasal swab

Medrxiv.org Pre-Print
2022

Reducing procedural discomfort for children requiring respiratory testing for SARS-CoV-2 is important in supporting testing strategies for case identification. Alternative sampling methods to nose and throat swabs, which can be self-collected, may reduce laboratory-based testing requirements and provide rapid results for clearance to attend school or hospital settings.

Tosif, S., Lee ,L., Nguyen, J., Selman, C., Grobler, A.C., McMinn, A., Steer, A., Babl F., Daley A., Crawford, N.
Rhinoswab

Evaluation of Rhinomed Rhinoswab (Hydrophobic Flock) Elution Efficiency

Online
May 2021

Gnomix (Adelaide Australia) was engaged to compare the elution efficiency of Rhinoswab compared to the standard of care nasal swab (Copan ESwab™).

The study found that the CT scores for the two swabs were comparable at 20 μl loading for both high and low virus burdens.

Gnomix Molecular Genetics
Rhinoswab

Mass surveillance of SARS-COV-2 utilising self-collection swabs and high throughput laboratory techniques: An Australian case study of asymptomatic Year 12 students at the Qudos Bank Arena

Online
2022

A total of 15,519 participant performed self-collection of a novel nasal swab (Rhinoswab). They were subsequently tested on a mobile laboratory platform combining a liquid handler (Myra) with a thermocycler (micPCR) and SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR reagents. Roche Liat was implemented as a confirmation device.

The study concluded that self-collection techniques are preferred, protect healthcare workers and improve result turnaround times.

NSW Health Pathology

Collection by trained pediatricians or parents of mid-turbinate nasal flocked swabs for the detection of influenza viruses in childhood

Virology Journal
2010

This study evaluated the efficiency of pediatric mid-turbinate nasal flocked swabs used by parents in 203 symptomatic children aged 6 months to 5 years.

Two nasal samples were collected in a randomised sequence: one by a trained pediatrician and one by a parent.

Thes findings showed that mid-turbinate nasal flocked swabs specifically designed for infants and children can be used by parents without reducing the influenza virus detection rate.

Esposito, S., Molteni, C.G., Daleno, C. et al.

Feasibility of specimen self-collection in young children undergoing SARS-COV-2 surveillance for in person learning

Jama Network Open
2021

The study was conducted at a K-8 school in California with 296 participants to assess whether school children aged 5 to 14 years, can feasibly self-collect SARS-CoV-2 samples for surveillance testing over the course of an academic year. Clinical research staff provided all students with instructions to ensure proper technique.

Error rates stabilized at 3% within a month showing that students were able to master nasal swabbing techniques and that lower nasal swabbing is well-tolerated by children as young as 5 years.

Jonathan Altamirano, MS1,2; Marcela Lopez, BA1; India G. Robinson, BS1; et al

Adequacy of nasal self-swabbing for SARS-COV-2 testing in children 

MedRxIV Preprint
2022

The goal of this study was to characterize the ability of school-aged children to self-collect adequate anterior nares (AN) swabs  for SARS-CoV-2 testing. 287 children aged 4-14 years-old, of whom 197, were symptomatic were instructed to self-collect a sample followed by a clinician collected sample.

94.1% of children provided adequate self-swabs versus  96.5% HCW-swabs with no difference when stratified by age.

Jesse J. Waggoner, Miriam B. Vos, Erika A. Tyburski, Phuong-Vi Nguyen, Jessica M. Ingersoll, Candace Miller, Julie Sullivan, Mark Griffiths, Cheryl Stone, Macarthur Benoit, Laura Benedit, Brooke Seitter, Robert Jerris, Joshua M. Levy, Colleen S. Kraft, Sarah Farmer, Amanda Foster, Anna Wood, Adrianna L. Westbrook, Claudia R. Morris, Usha N. Sathian, William Heetderks, Li Li, Kristian Roth, Mary Barcus, Timothy Stenzel, Greg S. Martin, Wilbur A. Lam

Assessment of Sensitivity and Specificity of Patient-Collected Lower Nasal Specimens for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome

Jama Network Open
2020

This prognostic study compared collection of three specimens: a patient-collected lower nasal swab, a physician-collected lower nasal swab and a physician-collected oropharyngeal swab from 30 participants infected with SARS-CoV-2.

Diagnostic equivalence was seen across the three methods of specimen collection.

Altamirano, J., Govindarajan, P., Blomkalns, A. L., Kushner, L. E., Stevens, B. A., Pinsky, B. A., & Maldonado, Y.
Rhinoswab

Evaluation of a novel anterior nasal swab for the detection of SARS-CoV-2

Journal of Virological Methods
June 2023

The study compared Rhinoswab, a novel anterior nasal swab to combined nose and throat and neat saliva samples.

The study found that Rhinoswab performed equally well in comparison to a combined throat and nose swab for the laboratory detection of SARS-CoV-2 using nucleic acid amplification techniques.

Amy Crowe, Yves Poy Lorenzo, Darren Jardine and Kumar Visvanathan

COVID-19 testing in kids: What concerns parents?

Online
November 2020

The Royal Children’s Hospital National Child Health Poll of 1434 parents who care for 2553 children, found a range of barriers which may impact on the willingness of parents to attend a testing clinic for their child. Of these parents, almost three quarters (74 per cent) were concerned the COVID-19 test might be stressful, painful or uncomfortable for their child, with 30 per cent indicating these worries are very likely to stop them from taking their child to have a test. 

RCH National Health Poll
Rhinoswab

Rhinoswab Sample Capture Study

Online
March 2021

The study compared the mean sample capture performance of Rhinoswab against the commercially available standard of care nasal swab (Copan ESwab™) when inserted in the nose for 15 seconds, 1 minute and 2 minutes.

The findings showed that Rhinoswab collected a statistically significant (95% CI) greater average sample mass across all insertion times.

Rhinomed

Nasal swab as preferred clinical specimen for Covid-19 testing in children

The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal
2020

A prospective study of children (age 0–18) testing positive for SARS-CoV-2, with 52 paired samples of both nasal and oropharyngeal specimens taken on admission and every 1-3 days during hospitalization.

Results support the superiority of nasal over oropharyngeal swab collection, determined by a significantly higher positivity rate and a significantly higher mean viral load on nasal samples.

Palmas G., Moriondo M., Trapani S., Ricci S., Calistri E., Pisano L., Perferi G., Galli L., Elisabetta Venturini E., Indolfi G., Azzari C.

Swabs Collected by Patients or Health Care Workers for SARS-CoV-2 Testing

New England Journal of Medicine
2020

A cross sectional study with 530 participants from five ambulatory clinics comparing self-collected tongue, nasal and mid turbinate  samples with clinician collected nasopharyngeal samples.

Both the nasal and mid-turbinate samples were clinically acceptable on the basis of estimated sensitivities above 90% and the 87% lower bound of the confidence interval for the sensitivity of the mid-turbinate sample being close to 90%.

Adoption of techniques for sampling by patients can reduce PPE use and provide a more comfortable patient experience.

Tu, Y.-P., Jennings, R., Hart, B., Cangelosi, G. A., Wood, R. C., Wehber, K., Berke, E. M.

Self-collection: An appropriate alternative during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic

Journal of Clinical Virology
2020

A prospective study of 236 patients comparing patient collected throat and nasal swabs, clinician collected throat and nasal swabs and clinician collected throat and nasopharyngeal swabs. Samples were analysed for SARS-CoV-2 as well as common respiratory viruses.

Self-collection was highly concordant with HCW collected for all viruses including SARS-CoV-2

Wehrhahn, M. C., Robson, J., Brown, S., Bursle, E., Byrne, S., New, D., Hadlow, N.

Comparison of Unsupervised Home Self-collected Midnasal Swabs With Clinician-Collected Nasopharyngeal Swabs for Detection

Jama Open Network
2020

A cross sectional study with 185 participants recruited at a covid drive -thru, compared clinician-collected nasopharyngeal swabs with home collected samples.

Unsupervised home self-swab collection was found to present several advantages, including accessibility outside of the health care system and minimizing personal protective equipment use.

McCulloch, D. J., Kim, A. E., Wilcox, N. C., Logue, J. K., Greninger, A. L., Englund, J. A., & Chu, H. Y.

Diagnostic performance of different sampling approaches for SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR testing: a systematic review and meta-analysis

The Lancet Infectious Diseases
2021

A systematic review and meta-analysis to compare the diagnostic performance of different clinical specimen collection methods from 5577 studies.

Nasal swabs gave comparable and very good diagnostic performance and are clinically acceptable alternative specimen collection methods.

Tsang, N. N. Y., So, H. C., Ng, K. Y., Cowling, B. J., Leung, G. M., & Ip, D. K. M.