Costa, Murilo SoaresSato, Hugo I.Rocha, Raissa PradoCarvalho, Alex Fiorini CoelhoGuimarães, Nathalia SernizonMachado, Elaine LeandroAlves, Claudia Regina LindgrenTeixeira, Santuza Maria RibeiroTakahashi, Ricardo Hiroshi CaldeiraTupinambás, UnaíFonseca, Flávio Guimarães da2021-12-092021-12-092021COSTA, M. S. et al. Adjusting the cut-off and maximum pool size in RT-qPCR pool testing for SARS-CoV-2. Viruses, v. 13, n. 4, artigo 557, 2021. Disponível em: <https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/13/4/557>. Acesso em: 10 jun. 2021.1999-4915http://www.repositorio.ufop.br/jspui/handle/123456789/14132Reverse transcription quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) to detect SARS-CoV-2 RNA is an essential test to monitor the occurrence of COVID-19. A methodology is proposed for the determination of maximum pool size and adjustments of cut-off values of cycle threshold (Ct in RT-qPCR pool testing, to compensate for the dilution caused by pooling. The trade off between pool size and test sensitivity is stated explicitly. The procedure was designed to ensure that samples that would be detectable in individual testing remain detectable in pool testing. The proposed relaxation in cut-off is dependent on the pool size, allowing a relatively tight correction to avoid loss of detection of positive samples. The methodology was evaluated in a study of pool testing of adults attending a public emergency care unit, reference for COVID-19 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and presenting flu-like symptoms. Even samples on the edge of detectability in individual testing were detected correctly. The proposed procedure enhances the consistency of RT-qPCR pool testing by enforcing that the scales of detectability in pool processing and in individual sample processing are compatible. This may enhance the contribution of pool testing to large-scale testing for COVID-19.en-USabertoArtigo publicado em periodicoThis article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). Fonte: o PDF do artigo.https://doi.org/10.3390/v13040557