Rapid Diagnosis of Sepsis and Bacterial Meningitis in Children with Real-Time Fluorescent Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction Amplification in the Bacterial 16S rRNA Gene
Restricted accessResearch articleFirst published online July, 2009
Rapid Diagnosis of Sepsis and Bacterial Meningitis in Children with Real-Time Fluorescent Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction Amplification in the Bacterial 16S rRNA Gene
A method for the detection of bacterial pathogens in sepsis and bacterial meningitis with 16S rRNA gene— based real-time fluorescent quantitative polymerase chain reaction (FQ-PCR) is developed. A total of 190 blood specimens and 5 cerebrospinal fluid specimens from neonates with suspected sepsis or bacterial meningitis were evaluated with 16S rRNA gene—based real-time FQ-PCR assay. The positive rate of the real-time FQ-PCR assay was significantly higher (25/195, 12.82%) than that of bacterial culture (15/195, 7.69%; P = .002). When bacterial culture was used as a control, the sensitivity of the real-time FQ-PCR was 100%, the specificity was 94.4%, and Youden's index was 0.944. This study suggests that 16S rRNA gene—based real-time FQ-PCR assay is an important and accurate method in the detection of bacterial pathogens of sepsis and bacterial meningitis and should have a promising usage in the diagnosis of sepsis and bacterial meningitis.
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