| Title: | Detection of Post-COVID-19 Patients Using Medical Scent Detection Dogs-A Pilot Study |
| Author(s): | Twele F; Ten Hagen NA; Meller S; Schulz C; Osterhaus A; Jendrny P; Ebbers H; Pink I; Drick N; Welte T; Schalke E; Volk HA; |
| Address: | "Department of Small Animal Medicine and Surgery, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Hannover, Germany. Research Center for Emerging Infections and Zoonoses, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Hannover, Germany. KynoScience UG, Horstel, Germany. Department of Respiratory Medicine, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany. Bundeswehr Medical Service Headquarters, Koblenz, Germany. Center for Systems Neuroscience, Hannover, Germany" |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 2296-858X (Print) 2296-858X (Electronic) 2296-858X (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "There is a growing number of COVID-19 patients experiencing long-term symptoms months after their acute SARS-CoV-2 infection. Previous research proved dogs' ability to detect acute SARS-CoV-2 infections, but has not yet shown if dogs also indicate samples of patients with post-COVID-19 condition (Long COVID). Nine dogs, previously trained to detect samples of acute COVID-19 patients, were confronted with samples of Long COVID patients in two testing scenarios. In test scenario I (samples of acute COVID-19 vs. Long COVID) dogs achieved a mean sensitivity (for acute COVID-19) of 86.7% (95%CI: 75.4-98.0%) and a specificity of 95.8% (95%CI: 92.5-99.0%). When dogs were confronted with Long COVID and negative control samples in scenario IIa, dogs achieved a mean sensitivity (for Long COVID) of 94.4 (95%CI: 70.5-100.0%) and a specificity of 96.1% (95%CI: 87.6-100.0%). In comparison, when acute SARS-CoV-2 positive samples and negative control samples were comparatively presented (scenario IIb), a mean sensitivity of 86.9 (95%CI: 55.7-100.0%) and a specificity of 88.1% (95%CI: 82.7-93.6%) was attained. This pilot study supports the hypothesis of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) being long-term present after the initial infection in post-COVID-19 patients. Detection dogs, trained with samples of acute COVID-19 patients, also identified samples of Long COVID patients with a high sensitivity when presented next to samples of healthy individuals. This data may be used for further studies evaluating the pathophysiology underlying Long COVID and the composition of specific VOC-patterns released by SARS-CoV-2 infected patients throughout the course of this complex disease" |
| Keywords: | Covid-19 Long COVID SARS-CoV-2 scent detection dogs volatile organic compound (VOC);neuroscience; |
| Notes: | "PubMed-not-MEDLINETwele, Friederike Ten Hagen, Nele Alexandra Meller, Sebastian Schulz, Claudia Osterhaus, Albert Jendrny, Paula Ebbers, Hans Pink, Isabell Drick, Nora Welte, Tobias Schalke, Esther Volk, Holger Andreas eng Switzerland 2022/07/06 Front Med (Lausanne). 2022 Jun 16; 9:877259. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2022.877259. eCollection 2022" |
