Letter to the Editor
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Oct 16, 2022; 10(29): 10820-10822
Published online Oct 16, 2022. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v10.i29.10820
Effect of gender on the reliability of COVID-19 rapid antigen test among elderly
Wassan Nori, Wisam Akram
Wassan Nori, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Mustansiriyah University, Baghdad 10052, Iraq
Wisam Akram, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, College of Medicine, Mustansiriyah University, Baghdad 10052, Iraq
Author contributions: Nori W and Akram W designed research and analyzed data; Nori W wrote the letter; Akram W revised the letter; both authors have read and agreed on the final version of the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Wassan Nori, PhD, Academic Editor, Academic Research, Senior Researcher, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Mustansiriyah University, Al Saydyia, Baghdad 10052, Iraq. dr.wassan76@uomustansiriyah.edu.iq
Received: July 21, 2022
Peer-review started: July 21, 2022
First decision: September 5, 2022
Revised: September 5, 2022
Accepted: September 12, 2022
Article in press: September 12, 2022
Published online: October 16, 2022
Abstract

Defining con-founders that affect the reliability of diagnostic tests for coronavirus disease 2019 is vital to breaking the chain of infection. The elderly population is a higher risk group for the emerging virus. However, gender seems to exert a critical role in modifying the infection risk among women owing to hormonal changes. The menopause transition is an exceptional period for older women where the protective and immunomodulatory effects of the estrogen hormone are lost. Accordingly, attention should be given to postmenopausal women since they will have an increased risk compared to their pre-menopausal peers.

Keywords: COVID-19, Rapid antigen test, Real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction, Age, Gender, Postmenopausal women

Core Tip: One of the main strengths of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is the limitation of tests confirming the infection. The rapid spread of the virus was accredited to false negative tests and asymptomatic carriers. The elderly are described as a high-risk group with increased morbidity and mortality rates. However, some discuss that COVID-19 is gender specific; as males suffer from a worse course of infection in comparison to age-matched females. COVID-19 diagnostic tests rely on patients’ immunological responses, we aimed to verify whether gender has an effect on the test reliability and if the test performance will be different among women in their menopausal years.