The diagnostic accuracy of currently available laboratory tests compared to PCR test for COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is caused by SARS-COV-2 and represents the causative agent of a potentially fatal and pandemic viral disease that is of great global public health concern and high transmutation rate and mechanisms. A comprehensive systematic search was performed on PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar, to find articles published until March 30, 2020. All relevant articles that reported clinical characteristics and laboratory result information of hospitalized COVID-19 patients were included in the analysis. Based on our analysis, however, articles not used RT-PCR and CT as were excluded all of the randomized controlled trial (RCT) were homogeneous (I2=94.58% and p≤0.001) statistical tests showed no publication bias/small study effect. Accordingly, the result of meta-analysis illustrated that RT-PCR increased cases of laboratory confirmation by more than 99% (95% CI: -1.3.0; 4.74) than other laboratory tests. As a result, this finding, is recommended to pilot and scale-up well and accurate laboratory techniques is used in developing countries, and is essential to prevent and control the pandemic diseases with spread in the world. However, it is recommended to further investigate the adverse effects of Real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) before fully implementing the confirmation.