Clinical Performance of Rapid and Point-of-Care Antigen Tests for SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern: A Living Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Rapid antigen tests (RATs) for detecting severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are widely used in the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by diverse variants. Information on the real-world performance of RATs for variants is urgently needed for decision makers. Systematic searches of the available literature and updates were conducted in PubMed, Ovid-MEDLINE, Ovid-EMBASE, CENTRAL, and KMBASE for articles evaluating the accuracy of instrument-free RATs for variants up until 14 March 2022. A bivariate random effects model was utilized to calculate pooled diagnostic values in comparison with real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction as the reference test. A total of 7562 samples from six studies were available for the meta-analysis. The overall pooled sensitivity and specificity of RATs for variants were 69.7% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 62.5% to 76.1%) and 100.0% (95% CI = 98.8% to 100.0%), respectively. When an additional 2179 samples from seven studies reporting sensitivities only were assessed, the pooled sensitivity dropped to 50.0% (95% CI = 44.0% to 55.0%). These findings suggest reassessment and monitoring of the diagnostic utility of RATs for variants, especially for the sensitivity aspect, to facilitate appropriate diagnosis and management of COVID-19 patients.