Abstract
Point-of-care (POC) CD4 testing increases patient accessibility to assessment of antiretroviral therapy eligibility. This review evaluates field performance in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) of currently available POC CD4 technologies.
Eight electronic databases were searched for field studies published between January 2005 and January 2015 of six POC CD4 platforms: PointCare NOW™, Alere Pima™ CD4, Daktari™ CD4 Counter, CyFlow® CD4 miniPOC, BD FACSPresto™, and MyT4™ CD4. Due to limited data availability, meta-analysis was conducted only for diagnostic performance of Pima at a threshold of 350 cells/μl, applying a bivariate multi-level random-effects modelling approach. A covariate extended model was also explored to test for difference in diagnostic performance between capillary and venous blood.
(2) = 4.77, p = 0.09).
POC CD4 testing can provides reliable results for making treatment decision under field conditions in low-resource settings. The Pima test shows a good diagnostic performance at CD4 cut-off of 350 cells/μl. More data are required to evaluate performance of POC CD4 testing using venous versus capillary blood in LMICs which might otherwise influence clinical practice.