COVID-19 Pandemic not only brought the virus but also introduced new medical terms. Terms like RT-PCT, Convalescent Plasma, CT count can be heard more often.
Let’s know what is the role of the CT score in the corona driven sickness.
The RT-PCT test is done on a suspected COVID-19 patient. They take the Naso-layngeal swabs from a patient. Numerous tests are conducted on these swabs. The tests determine that the patient is positive by the number of cycles or ‘cycle threshold’ needed to detect the virus in the sample. This is otherwise called as the CT test.
CT count and Viral Load
CT count signifies, the number of cycles in the sample. It helps to go through to amplify and bring the viral DNA to traceable level under given settings.
The sample is treated to extract the RNA from it. Meanwhile, a part of the DNA is taken from the sample and treated. It is treated with a reverse transcriptase enzyme .Then it is amplified to produce copies.
The DNA is analyzed and measured under clinical conditions using specific dyes. After the detection is done, number of cycles are determined to a sample.
The CT count tells us the viral load in the body of a patient. However, the lower the CT count, the higher the viral load on the patient. Sometimes, the viral load was so high that the DNA of the virus was visible.
The higher the CTscore the lower the viral load. Hence, more number of cycles and amplification was needed.
Positivity-Negativity cut off CT score
According to the medical guidelines globally, if the CT score is below 35, then a person is COVID positive. If the CT score is above 35 then the person is termed as COVID negative.
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