QuikRead go® CRP outperforms other CRP point-of-care tests in an analytical performance study

A recent study published in PLOS ONE journal compared the analytical performance of 17 C-reactive protein (CRP) point of care (POC) tests.

The purpose of the study was to enable more decentralised use of CRP testing at the point of care, which can support healthcare providers in the clinical management of patients.

The study involved 8 quantitative CRP tests and 9 semi-quantitative CRP tests. The results indicate that quantitative tests may be the better option for a range of use cases as they can be applied across a broader range of CRP categories.

For the quantitative CRP tests, the study conducted a method comparison to the reference method and precision analysis (repeatability) according to CLSI EP09-A3 protocol. Samples were collected from patients aged between 2-65 years who presented with fever. The measurement range covered the CRP range relevant to guide antibiotic prescribing and triage patients.

QuikRead go® CRP point of care test demonstrated the best agreement and lowest bias of all evaluated quantitative CRP tests. The precision analysis of the QuikRead go also showed good repeatability, with a CV of 5.3%. On the other hand, the semi-quantitative tests showed considerable variation in analytical performance.

The authors concluded that all quantitative tests performed well across the broad clinically relevant CRP range, while none of the semi-quantitative tests were acceptable for all cut-offs.

References and further reading:

Calarco et al. Analytical performance of 17 commercially available point-of-care tests for CRP to support patient management at lower levels of the health system. Plos One 2023; 18(1): e0267516. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267516

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