CASE REPORT article
Front. Med.
Sec. Precision Medicine
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1674391
This article is part of the Research TopicMolecular Informatics in Personalized Medicine - Volume IIView all 3 articles
Blood and cerebrospinal fluid mNGS-assisted diagnosis Toxoplasma gondii infection-associated with hemophagocytic syndrome and systemic lupus erythematosus
Provisionally accepted
- 1The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
- 2Department of Laboratory Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China., Guangzhou, China
- 3Vision Medicals Co., Ltd., Guangzhou, China, Guangzhou, China
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Background: Reactivation of latent Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) infection is more prevalent than primary infection in patients with autoimmune diseases. We present a rare case of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and hemophagocytic syndrome (HPS) associated with T. gondii infection. Case Presentation: We describe the case of a young girl with SLE and HPS who presented with fever, dyspnea, and pancytopenia. The patient's T. gondii infection was diagnosed through the detection of double-positive IgM and IgG antibodies. Metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) analysis of both plasma and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples revealed a high concentration of T. gondii DNA. The patient demonstrated a positive response to a combined treatment regimen consisting of anti-Toxoplasma medications and glucocorticoids. Conclusions: Co-infection with uncommon pathogens is not uncommon in patients with autoimmune diseases. In individuals with immune disorders and positive T. gondii IgM antibodies, mNGS analysis of peripheral blood samples proves valuable in diagnosing disseminated T. gondii infection.
Keywords: Toxoplasma gondii infection, Hemophagocytic syndrome (HPS), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), metagenomic next-generation sequencing(mNGS), Immunological disorder
Received: 28 Jul 2025; Accepted: 15 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chen, Xuegao, Deng, Yang and Chen. 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: Pei-Song Chen, chps@mail3.sysu.edu.cn
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