Fortunately, strep throat is easily treated with readily available antibiotics. But early diagnosis is important to protect your child’s health. Getting your child tested for strep throat usually requires a doctor’s visit, which means taking time off work and taking your child out of school — an inconvenience that adds to what researchers estimate is a total U.S economic cost per year of up to $539 million for childhood strep. That trip to the pediatrician could potentially be avoided with the use of a home strep test, according to a study published in March 2017 in the Journal of Participatory Medicine. Researchers in the Pediatrics Service of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology medical department (MIT Medical), invited parents of patients aged 5 to 16 who had either a sore throat or upper respiratory infection to perform a home strep test on their children. The test involved taking a throat swab to collect mucus and then exposing the swab to a chemical that reacts in the presence of group A strep. Out of 76 parents who attempted to perform the test, 71 did so successfully. Fifty-four of those tests turned out to be negative and 17 were positive. All the swabs were sent to the lab for bacterial culture, and only one of them returned back positive. The study reports that the child whose throat swab was positive for strep was prescribed antibiotics. Most parents also reported feeling “confident” or “somewhat confident” about taking the swabs and performing the test. The researchers concluded that home testing could save parents and pediatricians a lot of time and ease a major burden on the healthcare system — not to mention saving the United States economy a lot of money.
The Holdup With Bring At-Home Strep Tests to Market
If you’re making a mental note to stop by the pharmacy the next time your child has a sore throat, unfortunately it’s not that simple. While you can buy tests for group A strep from various online retailers, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved any of these tests for home use. Don’t be fooled by the marketing copy, which in most cases says that the devices are FDA-approved. This is technically true, but it’s misleading in that the tests are only approved for use by clinicians. But that doesn’t mean you’re out of luck. “It’s possible for parents to ‘hack’ this issue, so to speak,” says David Diamond, MD, the associate medical director of MIT Medical and an author of the study. You can buy the test online if your pediatrician agrees it will be helpful. Dr. Diamond notes that this home testing for strep is only worth pursuing if your pediatrician is on the same page. “It’s outside of the norm of practice, so they might not be receptive,” he says. “One of our reasons for doing this study was to help get this out there so it’s more readily available.” Andrew Fine, MD, MPH, an associate physician at Boston Children’s Hospital and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, describes the study’s approach to reducing hospital visits for strep testing as “a great strategy,” but says that home testing has some limitations. Dr. Fine says that some people may be carriers of strep, which means they will test positive for strep even if that is not the cause of their sore throat, runny nose, cough, and conjunctivitis. But if an at-home test turns up positive, a doctor may feel obligated to treat them. “And that leads to more antibiotic waste and more antibiotic resistance,” Fine says. You want to reduce the number of people with strep throat, but you don’t want to raise antibiotic resistance.” Fine also notes that the test may be easier to perform under clinical supervision than at home. “It’s not always so easy to swab a child — with some you say ‘Open up and say ahh,’ and it’s great, and with others, not so much. That could result in some false negatives, the kid doesn’t cooperate, and so you don’t really swab the tonsils.” In spite of these limitations, Fine says that home testing for group A strep is “definitely worthy of further study." Diamond recommends that parents who would like to see home strep tests in stores call their pediatricians and ask about them. “Tell your physician that you heard home strep testing is safe and effective,” he says. “We would love to see a groundswell of interest in this, such that the relevant regulatory agencies make this available wherever home pregnancy tests and so on are sold.”
