Clinical application of metagenomics sequencing in children with acute bacterial meningitis / 中华实用儿科临床杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To explore the application value of metagenomics sequencing in the etiological diagnosis of bacterial meningitis(BM) in children and improve the diagnosis and treatment effect of BM in children.Methods:All BM cases were collected from Jiangxi Provincial Children′s Hospital from February 1, 2018 to January 31, 2020.Meanwhile, such biological samples as blood and cerebrospinal fluid were collected for traditional etiological testing and metagenomics sequencing.The results of traditional etiological testing were regarded as the gold standard, and the specificity and sensitivity of metagenomics sequencing in the diagnosis of BM in children were confirmed.Results:A total of 45 cases were collected in this study, including 31 males and 14 females, with the age between (74.74 ± 58.67) months.Twenty-six cases were identified by metagenomics sequencing, with the positive rate being 57.78%.Among them, there were 8 cases of Streptococcus pneumoniae, 2 cases of Escherichia coli, 2 cases of Neisseria meningitidis, 2 cases of Staphylococcus, 2 cases of Salmonella, 2 cases of Mycobacterium multiplex, 1 case of Streptococcus intermedius, 1 case of Streptococcus pyogenes, 1 case of Streptococcus paris, 1 case of Streptococcus salivarius, 1 case of Haemophilus influenzae, 1 case of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, 1 case of Acinetobacter baumannii, and 1 case of Aspergillus.The traditional etiological positive rate was 17.78%, and the metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) positive rate was 57.78% ( P=0.014, kappa=0.273). As per the comparison results, the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, Youden index and misdiagnosis rate were 100.00%, 51.35%, 30.76%, 100.00%, 51.36%, 48.64% and 0, respectively. Conclusions:Metagenomics examination had high sensitivity, which can improve the etiological diagnosis rate of acute BM in children, especially in case of high clinical suspicion of infection.Therefore, metagenomics examination should be selected as early as possible when the etiology cannot be determined by traditional approaches.