Comparative Evaluation of mNGS and Traditional Culture Methods in Pathogen Detection for Pulmonary Infections

Area of Science:

• Infectious Diseases
• Microbiology
• Genomics

Background:

• Pulmonary infections pose a significant health challenge, often requiring accurate and timely diagnosis.
• Traditional culture methods have limitations in detecting a wide range of pathogens, including fastidious or non-culturable organisms.
• Metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) offers a culture-independent approach for comprehensive microbial identification.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy and clinical applicability of mNGS for pulmonary infections.
• To compare mNGS with conventional culture methods in a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) hospital setting.
• To assess the utility of mNGS in identifying diverse pathogens and co-infections.

Main Methods:

• A retrospective cohort study involving 67 patients with confirmed pulmonary infections.
• Analysis of various clinical specimens including blood, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF), sputum, hydrothorax, and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF).
• Comparison of pathogen detection rates and microbial profiles between mNGS and traditional culture.

Main Results:

• mNGS detected pathogens in 89.55% of cases, significantly higher than traditional culture (20.90%).
• mNGS identified viral co-infections in 44.78% of patients and detected fastidious pathogens like *Mycobacterium tuberculosis*.
• High discordance was observed between mNGS and culture results, highlighting the limitations of conventional methods.

Conclusions:

• mNGS demonstrates superior pathogen detection capabilities for pulmonary infections.
• The findings support the use of mNGS for guiding targeted antimicrobial therapy.
• mNGS has the potential to improve clinical outcomes and mitigate antibiotic resistance.