ArticleFrontiers in microbiology2021
A Comparison of Blood Pathogen Detection Among Droplet Digital PCR, Metagenomic Next-Generation Sequencing, and Blood Culture in Critically Ill Patients With Suspected Bloodstream Infections.
Article in Frontiers in microbiology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 70 papers.
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Who cites it
70 citing papers in PubMed, 98 citations in OpenAlex.
- Fast Microbiology: A Pilot Study Comparing Culture-Independent Digital PCR and Blood Culture for Pathogen Detection in Sepsis.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
- Blood-based targeted sequencing of microbial cell-free DNA in severe pneumonia-associated sepsis.Respiratory research · 2026Article
- Multiplex qPCR for the early detection of sepsis pathogens and its impact on antimicrobial therapy in critically ill patients.Iranian journal of microbiology · 2026Article
- Clinical Impact of Droplet Digital PCR-Guided Antibiotic Stewardship on Prognosis in Patients with Suspected Bloodstream Infection: A Prospective Observational Study.Infectious diseases and therapy · 2026Article
- Multiplex droplet digital polymerase chain reaction for rapid diagnosing suspected bloodstream infections in patients with hematologic malignancies.Translational cancer research · 2026Article
- Application of Droplet Digital PCR in Sputum Samples in Myasthenia Gravis Patients with Pneumonia.Infection and drug resistance · 2026Article
- Performance of metagenomic next-generation sequencing for bloodstream infections in perioperative critically ill patients- aFrontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2026Article
- Digital Droplet PCR (ddPCR) for Absolute Quantification of 16S rRNA Copy Number in Metagenomic Data.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2026Article
- The value of pathogen DNA load in evaluating the efficacy of bloodstream infection: a prospective observational study.BMC infectious diseases · 2025Observational
- Clinical utility of metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) and a novel PCR-based point-of-care testing (POCT) for pathogen detection in pulmonary infections: a retrospective study.BMC infectious diseases · 2025Article
- Spaceflight and Medical Microbiology: Possible Implications for Standard Infection Diagnostics and Therapy.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Quality indicators and turnaround time for blood culture in pediatric patients: 1 year of monitoring in 19 Chinese hospitals.BMC pediatrics · 2025Article
- Metagenomic next-generation sequencing reveals respiratory flora distribution in COVID-19.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Quantification of Bacterial and Drug-Resistant DNA Using dPCR in a Pediatric Patient with CVC-Related Bloodstream Infection.Infectious disease reports · 2025Article
- Optimizing Clinical Indicators in Hematologic Malignancies and Sepsis Using ddPCR: A Retrospective Study.Infectious diseases and therapy · 2025Article
- Comparison of the microbiome of sputum from HIV/AIDS patients using PacBio 16S rRNA sequencing and ddPCR.BMC infectious diseases · 2025Article
- The Molecular Diagnosis of Invasive Fungal Diseases with a Focus on PCR.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Performance of ddPCR-GNB for microbial diagnosis of suspected bloodstream infection due to the four most common gram-negative bacteria: a prospective, multicenter study.Microbiology spectrum · 2025Article
- Clinical diagnostic performance of droplet digital PCR for pathogen detection in patients with Escherichia coli bloodstream infection: a prospective observational study.BMC infectious diseases · 2025Observational
- Establishment and validation of a dual qPCR method for the detection of carbapenem-resistantFrontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2025Article
10 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) and droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) have recently demonstrated a great potential for pathogen detection. However, few studies have been undertaken to compare these two nucleic acid detection methods for identifying pathogens in patients with bloodstream infections (BSIs). This prospective study was thus conducted to compare these two methods for diagnostic applications in a clinical setting for critically ill patients with suspected BSIs. Upon suspicion of BSIs, whole blood samples were simultaneously drawn for ddPCR covering 20 common isolated pathogens and four antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes, mNGS, and blood culture. Then, a head-to-head comparison was performed between ddPCR and mNGS. A total of 60 episodes of suspected BSIs were investigated in 45 critically ill patients, and ddPCR was positive in 50 (83.3%), mNGS in 41 (68.3%, not including viruses), and blood culture in 10 (16.7%) episodes. Of the 10 positive blood cultures, nine were concordantly identified by both mNGS and ddPCR methods. The head-to-head comparison showed that ddPCR was more rapid (~4 h vs. ~2 days) and sensitive (88 vs. 53 detectable pathogens) than mNGS within the detection range of ddPCR, while mNGS detected a broader range of pathogens (126 vs. 88 detectable pathogens, including viruses) than ddPCR. In addition, a total of 17 AMR genes, including 14
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