Accuracy of screening methods of COVID-19 in pregnancy: a cohort study

BACKGROUND: All pregnant women in labor should be universally screened for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (CO-VID-19) during pandemic periods using reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test. In many low -middle income countries, screening method was developed as an initial examination because of limited availability of RT-PCR tests. This study aims to evaluate the screening methods of COVID-19 accuracy in pregnant women. METHODS: We recruited all pregnant women with suspicion of COVID-19 from April to August 2020 at Airlangga Uni-versity Hospital, Surabaya, Indonesia. The participant was divided into two groups based on RT-PCR results: COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 group. The proportion of positive signs and symptoms, rapid antibody test, abnormal findings in chest X-ray, and neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) value were then compared between both groups. The sensitiv-ity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive values (NPV), and diagnostic accuracy (DOR) were calculated. RESULTS: A total 141 pregnant women with suspected COVID-19 cases were recruited for this study. This consist of 62 COVID-19 cases (43.9%) and 79 non-COVID-19 pregnant women (56.1%). The sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV, and diagnostic accuracy of each parameter are as follow: clinical sign and symptoms (24.19%, 75.95%, 3.92%, 96.11%, 65.87%), rapid antibody test (72.73%, 35.06%, 4.35%, 96.94%, 36.53%), chest X-ray (40.68%, 59.45%, 3.92%, 96.11%, 58.76%), and NLR >5.8 (41.38%, 72%, 5.66%, 96.80%, 70.81%). CONCLUSIONS: The use of combined screening methods can classify pregnant women with high-risk COVID-19 be-fore definitively diagnosed with RT-PCR. This practice will help to reduce RT-PCR need in a limited resources country.