Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Apr 26, 2021; 9(12): 2816-2822
Published online Apr 26, 2021. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v9.i12.2816
Positive reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction assay results in patients recovered from COVID-19: Report of two cases
Ke-Xin Huang, Cheng He, Yan-Li Yang, Di Huang, Zhi-Xia Jiang, Bang-Guo Li, Heng Liu
Ke-Xin Huang, Cheng He, Yan-Li Yang, Bang-Guo Li, Heng Liu, Department of Radiology, The Affiliated Hospital of Zunyi Medical University, Zunyi 563000, Guizhou Province, China
Di Huang, Zhi-Xia Jiang, Department of Nursing, Guizhou Jiangjunshan Hospital, Guiyang 563000, Guizhou Province, China
Author contributions: Liu H and Li BG designed the experiments; Huang KX, He C, Yang YL, and Huang D collected the imaging and clinical data; Huang KX and Yang YL analyzed the data; Huang KX wrote the manuscript; Li BG revised the manuscript critically for important intellectual content; Liu H and Li BG revised the manuscript; all authors have read and approved the manuscript.
Informed consent statement: This study was approved by the institutional review board of the Guizhou Jiangjunshan Hospital. The study was also approved by the medical ethics committee and was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Both patients provided written informed consent prior to participation in the study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: We declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
CARE Checklist (2016) statement: The authors have read the CARE Checklist (2016), and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CARE Checklist (2016).
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: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Heng Liu, MD, PhD, Doctor, Professor, Department of Radiology, The Affiliated Hospital of Zunyi Medical University, No. 149 Dalian Road, Zunyi 563000, Guizhou Province, China. zmcliuh@163.com
Received: September 14, 2020
Peer-review started: September 14, 2020
First decision: December 24, 2020
Revised: January 2, 2021
Accepted: February 26, 2021
Article in press: February 26, 2021
Published online: April 26, 2021
Processing time: 213 Days and 1.3 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Current research on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) mainly focuses on limiting further spread and the negative impact of the disease, while less attention has been devoted to the follow-up and reexamination of patients who have recovered from COVID-19. We present two cases of COVID-19 that recovered from the disease but tested positive again after discharge. This reminds us to be vigilant about false-negative and false-positive reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction results. Once the patient is discharged, we should focus on his/her follow-up, isolation, and retesting.