Diagnostic Significance of Targeted Next-Generation Sequencing in Central Nervous System Infections in Neurosurgery of Pediatrics

Jihong Li; Lili Zhang; Xiaohui Yang; Pan Wang; Lijie Feng; Erkun Guo; Yuan Chen

doi:10.2147/IDR.S404277

Diagnostic Significance of Targeted Next-Generation Sequencing in Central Nervous System Infections in Neurosurgery of Pediatrics

Infect Drug Resist. 2023 Apr 15:16:2227-2236. doi: 10.2147/IDR.S404277. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Jihong Li^#¹, Lili Zhang^#², Xiaohui Yang², Pan Wang², Lijie Feng², Erkun Guo³, Yuan Chen²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Laboratory Medicine, The Second Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, 050000, People's Republic of China.
² Department of Pediatrics, The Second Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, 050000, People's Republic of China.
³ Department of Neurosurgery, The Second Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, 050000, People's Republic of China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) pathogen culture suffers from the drawbacks of prolonged cycle time and a low positivity rate in diagnosing intracranial infections in children. This study aims to investigate the diagnostic potential of targeted next-generation sequencing (tNGS) in pediatric neurosurgery for central nervous system (CNS) infections.

Methods: A retrospective study was conducted on children under 14 with suspected intracranial infections following craniocerebral trauma or surgery between November 2018 and August 2020. Routine, biochemical, smear, and pathogen culture tests were performed on CSF during treatment. The main parameters of CSF analysis encompassed white blood cells (WBC, ×10⁶/L) count, percentage of multinucleated cells (%), protein levels (g/L), glucose concentration (GLU, mmol/L), chloride levels (mmol/L), and pressure (mmH2O). The outcomes of tNGS were assessed through the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve and pertinent diagnostic parameters.

Results: Among the 35 included pediatric patients, 22 were clinically diagnosed with CNS infection in neurosurgery, tNGS was confirmed in 18 cases. The sensitivity and specificity of tNGS were 81.8% and 76.9%, respectively, while the traditional method of CSF cultures and smears exhibited a sensitivity of 13.6% and a specificity of 100%. ROC curve analysis indicated an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.794 for tNGS and 0.568 for the CSF cultures and smears. CSF analysis indicated that the two groups exhibited statistically significant differences in terms of WBC count [330.0 (110.00-2639.75) vs 14.00 (4.50-26.50), P<0.001] and percentage of multinuclear cells (%) [87.50 (39.75-90.00) vs 0 (0-10.00), P<0.001]. However, the remaining parameters did not statistically significant differences between the groups (all P>0.05).

Conclusion: tNGS demonstrates a high degree of diagnostic accuracy when detecting infections within the CNS of pediatric neurosurgery patients. tNGS can effectively establish for diagnosing CNS infections by detecting pathogenic microorganisms and their corresponding virulence and/or resistance genes within the test samples.

Keywords: central nervous system infections; cerebrospinal fluid; diagnostic; neurosurgery; targeted next-generation sequencing.

Grants and funding

The project was supported by the S&T Program of Hebei No.20377785D.