With the start of the 2017-2018 flu season approaching, and the upcoming deadline for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) new minimum performance requirements, there is renewed interest in understanding the performance characteristics of different flu testing methods. A newly published review in the Annals of Internal Medicine shows that newer-generation influenza tests—including digital immunoassays (DIAs) and rapid nucleic acid amplification tests (NAATs)—perform better than traditional rapid influenza diagnostic tests (RIDTs). "The results … suggest that traditional RIDTs are likely to be phased out by regulatory agencies like the FDA because of their poor sensitivity, especially in adults," write the authors led by Joanna Merckx, M.D., from McGill University in Canada. "Understanding the performance characteristics of different test methods across different patient populations is important for laboratory directors who must decide on their implementation and clinicians who must interpret their results for patient management." Rapid diagnosis of flu infection is important to prompt initiate antiviral therapy, limit ancillary diagnostic tests, reduce hospitalizations, institute prompt hospital infection control measures, and cut unnecessary antibiotic use. "Despite guidance that antivirals should be prescribed for high-risk patients and those hospitalized with clinically suspected influenza before confirmation by diagnostic testing, clinical practice falls far […]