Performance Evaluation of STANDARD F Strep A Ag FIA for Diagnosis of Group A Streptococcal Pharyngitis
	    		
		   		
		   			
		   		
	    	
    	- Author:
	        		
		        		
		        		
			        		Seon A JO
			        		
			        		
			        		
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			        		Sang Hyuk MA
			        		
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			        		Seungjun LEE
			        		
			        		;
		        		
		        		
		        		
			        		Sunjoo KIM
			        		
			        		
		        		
		        		
		        		
			        		
			        		Author Information
			        		
 - Publication Type:Original Article
 - From:Annals of Clinical Microbiology 2020;23(3):177-184
 - CountryRepublic of Korea
 - Language:Korean
 - 
		        	Abstract:
			       	
			       		
				        
				        	 Background:Pharyngitis is one of the most common conditions encountered in primary health care facilities. Accurate differentiation of group A streptococcus (GAS) infection from viral infection is difficult. The STANDARD F Strep A Ag FIA (SD BIOSENSOR, Korea) is a rapid antigen detection test (RADT) that has been recently developed for diagnosing GAS pharyngitis. In this study, we evaluated the diagnostic performance of the STANDARD F Strep A Ag FIA and compared the results between the RADT and conventional throat culture. 
				        	
Methods:Throat swab samples were obtained from a total of 372 children presenting pharyngitis symptoms in five pediatric clinics in Changwon, Korea from July 2018 to October 2019. A comparative study between STANDARD F Strep A Ag FIA and Sofia Strep A FIA (Quidel, USA) was performed. Two throat swabs were taken simultaneously from each patient for RADT. The third throat swab was stored in a transport tube containing Stuart's transport medium for culture. Performance and kappa index of STANDARD F Strep A Ag FIA were evaluated.
Results:GAS infection was detected in 29.3% (109/372) patients, using the STANDARD F Strep A Ag FIA. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value were 95.0%, 95.2%, 88.1%, and 98.1%, respectively. The STANDARD F Strep A Ag FIA showed an excellent concordance rate of 96.5% and a kappa value of 0.89 compared to Sofia Strep A FIA.
Conclusion:The STANDARD F Strep A Ag FIA demonstrated an excellent performance along with Sofia Strep A FIA for the diagnosis of GAS pharyngitis. 
            