Rapid Strep Test
Rapid Strep Test has a sensitivity rate of about 59.9% and specificity of 97.2%. The RST tool can measure the presence of group A antigens with high rates of reliability under different conditions that allow the instrument to function, such as room temperature, which is important to facilitate the formation of antibody-antigen complex. The study reported higher rates of streptococcus carriers in the sample population, which reduced the sensitivity of the instrument. However, the authors recognized the high levels of reliability when Rapid Strep Test instrument is used repeatedly in the same sample as the tool can give similar results. The specificity value observed in the tool is appropriate for the detection of group A streptococcus as there are different bacteria that can cause throat infection. The high rates of specificity facilitate easy discrimination of different pathogens by the instrument. As such, the RST tool can detect the presence of an infection caused by the target bacteria.
According to the systemic review Stewart et al., (2014), Rapid Strep Test tool has high levels of reliability and validity when used as per the standard testing procedures in the clinical setting. The study found that the RST tool as a specificity rate of 97% based on pooled findings from previous research and a pooled sensitivity rate of 86%. The high rates of sensitivity show that the instrument can detect the presence of group A strep antigens when the bacterial population is low such as when the patient is not showing any symptoms due to low bacterial load in the throat. Patients presenting with signs of fever without throat complaints have a low bacterial load in the body can easily be diagnosed using the RST instrument. High levels of specificity in the instrument contribute to its effectiveness in detecting group A strep pathogens to prevent the wrong diagnosis. Rapid Strep Test tool is easy to use by a clinician in the office during initial patient assessment without the need to order for laboratory tests. Previous studies have shown the immunoassay based instruments have high reliability and validity as compared to immunochromatographic models that utilize an immobilized antibody. As such, it is important to select the appropriate RST instrument in the market for use during diagnosis.
Rapid Strep Test tool can be used in the diagnosis of both children and adults due to its reliability to detect the specific antigen in the sample collected. According to Kucuk et al. (2013), the Rapid Strep Test tool has a higher positive predictive value of about 87.1%. The instrument meets the required threshold for a reliable diagnostic instrument as the number of tests that can accurately detect to be positive for a throat infection caused by group A strep is high. It can capture a high number of affected subjects from a sample of patients under screening. The study also found that the RST instrument has a negative predictive value of 88.4%. The high values show that the tool can discriminate between patients with the infection and those free from the pathogen to prevent wrong medication when patients are prescribed with antibiotics when they are not infected.
The use of Rapid Strep Test to diagnose throat infection can cause ethical dilemmas to the physicians when the collected samples test negative. The current standard procedures require a diagnosis before the administration of antibiotics. However, not all throat swabs that test negative are accurate, particularly when patients present with symptoms of sore throat. As such, the clinicians face ethical dilemmas when using the RST tool that shows negative results in the presence of a sore throat (Nasirian et al., 2017). The main controversy reported by research on the use of the Rapid Strep Test instrument is the issue of negative group A streptococcus in children with a low bacterial load that can be detected using bacterial culture. According to Cohen et al. (2016), bacterial cultures that show positive results for GAS when the bacterial load is low can easily be missed by the RST tool, which prevents patients from receiving treatment.