CASE REPORT article
Front. Med.
Sec. Intensive Care Medicine and Anesthesiology
This article is part of the Research TopicNext-Generation Sequencing in Infectious Disease Management: Integrative Fungal and Bacterial Diagnostics from Innovation to Clinical PracticeView all articles
Rapid diagnosis of Lemierre's syndrome by metagenomic next-generation sequencing: a case report
Provisionally accepted
Wang Yanhui
Zhang Xinqi*- The 960th Hospital of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Joint Logistics Support Force, Jinan, China
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Lemierre's syndrome, also known as postopharyngeal septicaemia or necrobacillosis, is a rare, fatal opportunistic infection, often caused by Fusobacterium necrophorum invading the throat. Bacterial culture is a conventional method to establish a diagnosis, but is time-consuming and insensitive in some cases. Metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS), as an emerging technique, has become an important supplementary detection method for infectious diseases. It greatly favors the rapid, precise diagnosis and treatment of Lemierre's syndrome through accurately obtaining etiological information. We reported a case of Lemierre's syndrome that was rapidly and accurately diagnosed by mNGS.
Keywords: case report, diagnose, Fusobacterium necrophorum, Lemierre's syndrome, metagenomic next-generation sequencing
Received: 22 Oct 2025; Accepted: 10 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yanhui and Xinqi. 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: Zhang Xinqi
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