Saliva LAMP Screening

Since January, Parker has been relying on saliva surveillance screening using LAMP technology. The LAMP screening amplifies RNA in a manner similar to that of RT-PCR tests but is more cost effective and is highly sensitive for the purposes of screening a population. Since our provider began offering LAMP screening to schools and school districts, screens have been shown to be highly accurate. After thousands of weekly screens, the rate of false positives and false negatives is extremely low. This technology is better at detecting COVID-19 than a rapid antigen test. In individuals with clinically significant amounts of virus it is just as sensitive as RT-PCR which is considered the gold standard. In other words, individuals whether symptomatic or asymptomatic who have enough virus to be considered contagious will almost always screen positive in LAMP testing. For this reason, we have chosen to do surveillance screening at Parker in the following settings:

As with any other screen, RT-PCR included, LAMP screening will sometimes miss cases with very low amounts of virus. We consider that acceptable, because this is not a diagnostic test meant to treat individuals with COVID-19 and because it is but one of several layers of risk mitigation.