Purpose: To study the positivity rate of conjunctival realtime polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).
Design: Systematic review and diagnostic accuracy meta-analysis.
Methods: MEDLINE and EMBASE were queried using medical subject headings terms. Diagnostic accuracy meta-analyses and forest plots were obtained using the RevMan software.
Results: After deduplication, appraisal of abstract titles and full-text analysis of 1441 articles, 42 articles with 3351 COVID-19 patients were included in this review. Of these, 412 conjunctival swabs/Schirmer paper strips tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 by RT-PCR. The pooled sensitivity of the RT-PCR tests across the 24 studies with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 patients was 10.3%.
Conclusions: Only 1 in 10 RT-PCR tests performed on conjunctival swabs were positive for SARS-CoV-2. Although this suggests that SARS-CoV-2 is likely present and detectable in the conjunctiva, this detection method has low diagnostic potential.
Keywords: COVID-19; RT-PCR; SARS-CoV-2; conjunctiva; diagnostic accuracy.