Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Evaluation of a commercial NGS service for detection of bacterial and fungal pathogens in infectious ulcerative keratitis.
- Journal:
- Veterinary ophthalmology
- Year:
- 2023
- Authors:
- Bendlin, Ashley et al.
- Affiliation:
- Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences · United States
Plain-English summary
This study looked at how well a commercial next-generation sequencing (NGS) service could identify bacteria and fungi in dogs and horses with infectious ulcerative keratitis (IUK), which is an eye infection that causes ulcers. Researchers compared the NGS results to traditional methods like corneal cultures and cytology. They found that NGS was able to detect infectious organisms in many cases, including some where traditional cultures did not find anything. Overall, the NGS method showed good sensitivity and specificity, meaning it was fairly accurate in identifying the pathogens. The researchers concluded that NGS could be a helpful tool for diagnosing IUK, but more studies are needed to understand the importance of the additional organisms it finds.
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: To compare results from a commercial next-generation sequencing (NGS) service to corneal cytology and culture for identification of causative organisms in veterinary patients presenting for infectious ulcerative keratitis (IUK). PROCEDURE: Swabs for corneal aerobic and fungal cultures and DNA swabs for NGS were submitted for canine and equine normal controls (n = 11 and n = 4, respectively) and IUK patients (n = 22 and n = 8, respectively) for which microbrush cytology specimens confirmed the presence of infectious organisms. The sensitivity of the NGS results was compared with bacterial and fungal culture results. Concordance between the NGS and culture results was determined. RESULTS: The NGS results were positive for bacterial and fungal organisms in 5 and 1 normal and 18 and 1 IUK cases, respectively. Bacterial and fungal cultures were positive for 7 and 2 normal and 20 and 5 IUK cases, respectively. Sensitivity of NGS was 82.14% (95% confidence interval (CI), 63.11% to 93.94%) and specificity was 76.47% (95% CI, 50.10% to 93.19%). Concordance (complete and partial) between identified bacterial and fungal organisms was found in 79% and 100% of cases, respectively. NGS identified organisms in 3 culture-negative IUK samples. CONCLUSION: A commercial NGS service may be useful in the identification of causative agents in IUK cases with a sensitivity greater than the sensitivity previously reported for aerobic culture. Further testing is needed to determine the clinical significance of additional organisms isolated by NGS from infected cases, as well as organisms isolated from normal corneas.
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Search related cases →Original publication: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36943705/