ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Cell. Infect. Microbiol.
Sec. Clinical Infectious Diseases
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2025.1578939
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvancements in Sepsis Diagnosis Utilizing Next-Generation Sequencing Approaches for Personalized MedicineView all 10 articles
Comparison of the diagnostic capabilities of tNGS and mNGS for pathogens causing lower respiratory tract infections: A prospective observational study
Provisionally accepted
- 1First Affiliated Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China
- 2Jiangsu Health Vocational College, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China
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Aims: Pathogens in lower respiratory tract infections(LRTI) are complex. Conventional microbiological testings(CMTs) are time-consuming and inaccurate. mNGS is widely used to overcome these issues. tNGS, as an emerging NGS technology, has uncertain diagnostic efficacy.Materials and methods: 136 suspected LRTI patients were included from January 2022 to February 2024 from the Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine at Jiangsu Province People's Hospital,China. We simultaneously submit mNGS, tNGS and traditional laboratory testing methods for testing. Then, we compared the diagnostic efficacy of mNGS and tNGS, as well as the detection results for different pathogens.Results: A total of 136 patients were included, and there was no statistically significant difference in the detection sensitivity(74.75% VS 78.64%，p>0,05) and specificity(81.82% vs 93,94%,p>0.05) between mNGS and tNGS. However, tNGS has a higher sensitivity(27.94% vs 17.65%,p=0.043)and specificity(88.78% vs 84.82%,p=0.048) for fungi. According to our diagnostic criteria, tNGS successfully identified 3 cases of PJP individually. In addition, both tNGS and mNGS detected chlamydia psittaci whereas CMTs were unable to detect it.Conclusions: tNGS demonstrates diagnostic efficacy for pathogens in lower respiratory tract infections that is comparable to mNGS. However, tNGS has specific advantages in the detection of fungi. Considering the cost-effectiveness of tNGS, it is recommended to implement tNGS clinically for patients with lower respiratory tract infections.
Keywords: Lower respiratory tract infection, NGS - next generation sequencing, mNGS (metagenomic next-generation sequencing), targeted next generation sequencing (tNGS), diagnosis
Received: 18 Feb 2025; Accepted: 14 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ding, Jing, Wei, Wang, Li, Wang, Zhou, Qian and Sun. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Qian Qian, Jiangsu Health Vocational College, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China
Wenkui Sun, First Affiliated Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China
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