Patients with hematological malignancies frequently present with severe and intricate infections that pose life-threatening risks. Conventional pathogen detection methods offer limited clinical insights and therapeutic guidance. This retrospective study evaluated the clinical application of metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) in hematologic patients who remained febrile despite prolonged antibiotic therapy, which means unresponsive to antibiotic therapy. This retrospective analysis included 204 patients with hematologic malignancies, undergoing conventional pathogen detection and peripheral blood mNGS. The cohort was stratified into neutropenia and non-neutropenia groups to compare the diagnostic and therapeutic implications of mNGS versus conventional microbiological tests (CMT). Among the 204 patients with mNGS, the overall positive detection rate was significantly higher than that of CMT (68.1% vs 30.9%, P<0.001). In both the neutropenia and non-neutropenia group, mNGS demonstrated a higher positivity rate for bacteria than for CMT (bacteria, 36.4% vs 15.6%, P<0.01). mNGS proved notably advantageous for bloodstream infections with clinically relevant drug-resistant strains, particularly in the neutropenia cohort (26.4% vs 12.5%, P<0.001). Using a composite reference standard, mNGS manifested sensitivity and specificity rates of 78.4% and 61.9%, respectively. Patients in the neutropenia group derived superior clinical benefit from mNGS, including higher diagnostic accuracy and treatment efficacy (diagnosis, 56.4% vs 40.6%, P=0.036; treatment, 49.3% vs 31.3%, P = 0.016). Additionally, the 30-days mortality rate was notably higher among mNGS-positive patients who tested compared to those who tested negative (17.3% vs 1.5%, P<0.001). mNGS demonstrated clinical relevance in patients with hematologic malignancy who received prolonged antibiotic treatment and holds promise in predicting patient survival prognosis.
Cheng et al. (Sun,) studied this question.