Publications

Invasive mucormycoses are increasingly emerging and a severe health threat with potentially fatal outcome especially for immunocompromised patients. They are challenging to diagnose: the diagnostic workup includes numerous tests, is time-intensive and frequently invasive. Cultivation is difficult and slow and yet frequently remains negative. Fast diagnosis for a timely treatment is urgently needed. We here describe a case series, where untargeted next-generation sequencing (NGS, with Noscendo’s CE-IVD marked DISQVER® pathogen test) provided identification of moulds in three patients with underlying hematologic malignancies from a standard blood draw within 24h after sample arrival.

Febrile neutropenia (FN) following chemotherapy is a major cause of morbidity requiring urgent use of broad-spectrum antibiotics. Blood culture (BC) is a standard diagnostic method for FN but sensitivity of pathogen detection is low. Timely identification of causative pathogens using metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) of circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) from plasma could reduce morbidity and costs by enabling early-targeted antimicrobial therapy. The aim of this study is to establish mNGS (DISQVER) for the detection of pathogens within 24h in immunocompromised haematological patients with FN