Background: Adenoviruses are a prominent cause of respiratory, ocular, gastrointestinal, and disseminated diseases in healthy and immunocompromised children. An accurate rapid diagnostic assay may impact clinical decision-making.
Objectives: Evaluate the performance of a new rapid assay for detection of adenoviruses directly in pediatric clinical specimens.
Study design: The rapid assay was performed on adenovirus culture-positive original samples and on an equal number of culture-negative samples matched by patient age and specimen type. Discrepant results were resolved using a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay.
Results: 200 adenovirus culture-positive and 200 adenovirus culture-negative samples were evaluated from 315 different patients. Overall sensitivity was 55% and specificity was 98.9%. The assay was most sensitive in children 5 years old and younger and most specific in respiratory samples.
Conclusions: The rapid assay was highly specific for detecting adenovirus infections in children. However, since this rapid assay had only moderate to low sensitivity, samples with negative rapid assay results should have additional testing for adenovirus performed by either viral culture or PCR.