Objective To explore the efficacy of a novel detection technique of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) to identify benign and malignant lung nodules. Methods Nanomagnetic CTC detection based on polypeptide with epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM)-specific recognition was performed on enrolled patients with pulmonary nodules. There were 73 patients including 48 patients with malignant lesions as a malignant group and 25 patients with benign lesion as a benign group. There were 13 males and 35 females at age of 57.0±11.9 years in the malignant group and 11 males and 14 females at age of 53.1±13.2 years in the benign group. e calculated the differential diagnostic efficacy of CTC count, and conducted subgroup analysis according to the consolidation-tumor ratio, while compared with PET/CT on the efficacy. Results CTC count of the malignant group was significantly higher than that of the benign group (0.50/ml vs. 0.00/ml, P<0.05). Subgroup analysis according to consolidation tumor ratio (CTR) revealed that the difference was statistically significant in pure ground glass (pGGO) nodules 1.00/mlvs. 0.00/ml, P<0.05), but not in part-solid or pure solid nodules. For pGGO nodules, the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of CTC count was 0.833, which was significantly higher than that of maximum of standardized uptake value (SUVmax) (P<0.001). Its sensitivity and specificity was 80.0% and 83.3%, respectively. Conclusion The peptide-based nanomagnetic CTC detection system can differentiate malignant tumor and benign lesions in pulmonary nodules presented as pGGO. It is of great clinical potential as a noninvasive, nonradiating method to identify malignancies in pulmonary nodules.
ObjectiveTo analyze the diagnostic efficacy of colloidal gold immunochromatography assay (GICA) in detection of SARS-CoV-2.MethodsUsing GICA detection kits from three different manufacturers, 33 serum samples were collected from 12 patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection at different time and 45 serum samples from 45 patients without SARS-CoV-2 infection were collected from West China Hospital of Sichuan University from January to February, 2020.ResultsThe sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of the three GICA reagents were 66.7% - 90.9%, 73.3% - 100.0%, 71.4% - 100.0% and 80.4% - 91.7% respectively. The rates of missed diagnosis and misdiagnosis were 9.1% - 33.3% and 0 - 26.7%, respectively. The positive rate decreased with titer increasing. The interference factors mainly included human immunodeficiency virus infection, high rheumatoid factor blood samples, and hemolysis.ConclusionClinical laboratories should pay attention to the differences in the detection ability and potential cross-reaction of different reagents, or use a combination of multiple antibodies.