Clinical utility of Point-of-Care D-dimer assay analyzers to exclude pulmonary thromboembolism in patients with COVID-19

Abstract

The aim was to evaluate the clinical utility of D-dimer POC assay analyzers to rule out the diagnosis of PTE in adult patients diagnosed with COVID-19. Systematic review and meta-analysis. The evaluated technology was the Point-of-Care D-dimer assay analyzer. To combine the effect estimates whose measure was the difference between the means, the random effect model was used. We included 10 studies that evaluated 14 Point-of-Care analyzers compared to the Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay assay. All Point-of-Care analyzers evaluated showed sensitivity and NPV greater than 95 and 97%, respectively, with an average return time of 95 minutes. Evidence suggests that the use of Point-of-Care analyzers for D-dimer is clinically useful to rule out cases of pulmonary thromboembolism and other thromboembolic complications in patients with COVID-19 treated in the emergency room or in primary care units.