AccScience Publishing / MI / Volume 1 / Issue 2 / DOI: 10.36922/mi.4636
CASE SERIES

Rapid diagnosis of culture-negative Klebsiella pneumoniae liver abscesses by next-generation sequencing: A case series

Fanfan Xing1 Chaowen Deng1 Zhendong Luo2 Jing Chen2 Simon K. F. Lo1 Susanna K. P. Lau3* Patrick C. Y. Woo3,4,5*
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1 Department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology, The University of Hong Kong–Shenzhen Hospital, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
2 Department of Medical Imaging, The University of Hong Kong–Shenzhen Hospital, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
3 Department of Microbiology, School of Clinical Medicine, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong SAR, China
4 Doctoral Program in Translational Medicine and Department of Life Sciences, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan
5 The iEGG and Animal Biotechnology Research Center, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan
MI 2024, 1(2), 94–99; https://doi.org/10.36922/mi.4636
Submitted: 23 August 2024 | Accepted: 23 October 2024 | Published: 11 November 2024
© 2024 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

Diagnosis of Klebsiella pneumoniae (Kp) pyogenic liver abscesses is usually achieved by imaging and isolation of the bacterium. However, when blood and other cultures were negative, laboratory diagnosis of Kp liver abscess may be challenging. Herein we report two patients with culture-negative Kp liver abscess with atypical presentations diagnosed by metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS). For the first non-diabetic patient, computed tomography examination of the abdomen showed multiple round low-density foci with untidy margin in the liver, which mimicked hydatid cysts; while the second patient presented with acute cholecystitis/cholangitis. mNGS analysis of the blood sample from the first patient revealed 144 sequence reads of Kp; and that of the second revealed 153 sequence reads of Kp as well as other latent or non-pathogenic microorganisms. Both patients responded promptly to antibiotics treatment. mNGS is a useful tool for laboratory diagnosis of culture-negative Kp liver abscess.

Keywords
Klebsiella pneumoniae
Pyogenic liver abscess
Next-generation sequencing
Rapid diagnosis
Funding
This work was partly supported by the Sanming Project of Medicine in Shenzhen (grant number SZSM201911014) and the Feature Areas Research Center Program within the framework of the Higher Education Sprout Project by the Ministry of Education in Taiwan (grant number MOE- 113-S-0023-A).
Conflict of interest
Patrick C. Y. Woo has provided scientific advisory/ laboratory services for Gilead Sciences, Incorporated; International Health Management Associates, Incorporated; Merck and Corporation, Incorporated; and Micología Molecular S.L. and Pfizer, Incorporated. Patrick C. Y. Woo is also an Editorial Board Member of this journal, but was not in any way involved in the editorial and peer-review process conducted for this paper, directly or indirectly. Separately, other authors declared that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have influenced the work reported in this paper. The funding sources had no role in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, or writing of the report.
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Microbes & Immunity, Electronic ISSN: 3029-2883 Print ISSN: 3041-0886, Published by AccScience Publishing