ArticleThe Lancet regional health. Europe2023
Relationship between molecular pathogen detection and clinical disease in febrile children across Europe: a multicentre, prospective observational study.
Article in The Lancet regional health. Europe, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- Causes of Fever in a Cohort of Nepali Children and the Potential Impact of Molecular Testing During a Dengue Fever Outbreak.The Pediatric infectious disease journal · 2026Article
- Predicting trajectories of illness using RNA velocity of whole blood.Nature communications · 2026Observational
- Host gene expression analysis in the detection of bacterial and viral etiology in children hospitalized with a suspected severe infection.Communications medicine · 2026Article
- Real-World Study Assessing Sensitivity and Clinical Utility of a Host-Protein Test in Adult Emergency Department Patients With Blood Culture Ordered.Journal of the American College of Emergency Physicians open · 2025Article
- Immunity to Streptococcus pyogenes and Common Respiratory Viruses at Age 0 to 4 Years After COVID-19 Restrictions.JAMA network open · 2025Article
- microRNA Biomarkers in Paediatric Infection Diagnostics-Bridging the Gap Between Evidence and Clinical Application: A Scoping Review.Non-coding RNA · 2025Review
- A 5-transcript signature for discriminating viral and bacterial etiology in pediatric pneumonia.iScience · 2025Article
- Reassessing sepsis research: new clues for old players and new players for an old symptom to improve patient outcomes.EXCLI journal · 2025Review
- Raising AWaRe-ness of Antimicrobial Stewardship Challenges in Pediatric Emergency Care: Results from the PERFORM Study Assessing Consistency and Appropriateness of Antibiotic Prescribing Across Europe.Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · 2024Article
- Procalcitonin and Presepsin as Markers of Infectious Respiratory Diseases in Children: A Scoping Review of the Literature.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Utility of Rapid Nasopharyngeal Swab for Respiratory Pathogens in the Diagnosis of Viral Infections in Children Hospitalized with Fever: A Prospective Validation Study to Improve Antibiotic Use.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Prevalence of Co-Infections and Pathogens in Hospitalized Children with Acute Respiratory Infections: A Comparative Analysis Between SARS-CoV-2 and Non-SARS-CoV-2 Cases.Global pediatric health · 2024Article
- Rapid molecular diagnostic tests fail to PERFORM in febrile children.The Lancet regional health. Europe · 2023Article
- Stewardship of Molecular Diagnostics in Transplant Viral Infections.Transplant infectious disease : an official journal of the Transplantation SocietyReview
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
51 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: The PERFORM study aimed to understand causes of febrile childhood illness by comparing molecular pathogen detection with current clinical practice. Methods: Febrile children and controls were recruited on presentation to hospital in 9 European countries 2016-2020. Each child was assigned a standardized diagnostic category based on retrospective review of local clinical and microbiological data. Subsequently, centralised molecular tests (CMTs) for 19 respiratory and 27 blood pathogens were performed. Findings: Of 4611 febrile children, 643 (14%) were classified as definite bacterial infection (DB), 491 (11%) as definite viral infection (DV), and 3477 (75%) had uncertain aetiology. 1061 controls without infection were recruited. CMTs detected blood bacteria more frequently in DB than DV cases for Interpretation: Most febrile children cannot be conclusively defined as having bacterial or viral infection when molecular tests supplement conventional approaches. Viruses are detected in most patients with bacterial infections, and the clinical value of individual pathogen detection in determining treatment is low. New approaches are needed to help determine which febrile children require antibiotics. Funding: EU Horizon 2020 grant 668303.
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