Group A Streptococci point of care testing improves diagnostic accuracy for patients presenting with sore throat

Background: Group A streptococci infections are the cause for acute rheumatic fever and chronic heart disease. Therefore it would be ideal to treat every patient presenting with a streptococcal infection with antibiotics. For patients presenting with a sore throat the difficulty is to correctly identify those who have streptococcal infection and should be prescribed antibiotics. Aims: We have evaluated a point of care antigen test for the use in patients presenting with sore throat and have correlated the results to the clinician's impression and the Centor score. Methods: Prospective single centre cohort study for diagnostic accuracy Results: Positive and negative predictive values and etiologic predictive values indicate that the test could be used in the Mount Isa emergency department to rule in and to rule out patients with a sore throat for antibiotic treatment. In any realistic setting the test etiologic predictive values indicate that the test can rule out patients for antibiotic treatment. Conclusions/recommendations: A group A streptococci point of care test would improve diagnostic accuracy for patients presenting with a sore throat.

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AYRI 2016: 8th Biennial Are You Remotely Interested Conference

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