CASE REPORT article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Autoimmune and Autoinflammatory Disorders : Autoimmune Disorders
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1643599
This article is part of the Research TopicCase Reports in Autoimmune and Autoinflammatory Disorders: Volume IIView all 18 articles
Diagnosing Rickettsia felis Infection with Metagenomic Nextgeneration Sequencing in a patient with ankylosing spondylitis: Case report and literature review
Provisionally accepted
- 1The Second School of Clinical Medicine, Zhejiang University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Hangzhou, China
- 2The Second Affiliated Hospital Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China
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Rickettsia felis, an emerging flea-borne pathogen with global distribution potential, is a neglected cause of undifferentiated febrile illness, though reported human cases remain sparse. With the development of molecular medical testing technology and the application of macrogenomic second-generation sequencing (mNGS) assisted diagnostic technology, the diagnostic accuracy of infectious fevers has improved. A case of Rickettsia felis infection was diagnosed by mNGS in a 55-year-old patient with pre-existing ankylosing spondylitis. Five previously reported cases of Rickettsia felis infection were systematically reviewed, with comprehensive analysis and summarization of their epidemiological characteristics, clinical manifestations, and therapeutic regimens. This study summarizes the clinical manifestations and diagnostic approaches of this disease through a case report and literature review.
Keywords: ankylosing spondylitis, MNGs, Rickettsia felis, Fever of Unknown Origin, literature review, case report
Received: 09 Jun 2025; Accepted: 19 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu, Cheng, Wang, He, Yang, Chen, Fan and Wang. 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: Weijie Wang, The Second Affiliated Hospital Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China
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