mNGS sepsis V 1.0
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The impact of a single diagnostic test (Metagenomic sequencing, mNGS) on clinical management of sepsis and meningitis in children
IRAS ID
316759
Contact name
Kathryn Harris
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Barts Health NHS Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
Sepsis affects 25,000 children in the UK every year. A patient has septicaemia (blood-poisoning) when germs are in the blood-stream. Sepsis can also be caused by infection of other organs in the body, for example meningitis which is an infection of the fluid around the brain and spinal cord (cerebrospinal fluid).
Blood samples taken from patients can be tested in the laboratory to find out what germ is causing the infection, and this information is used to decide on the best treatment, normally antibiotics.
The most common way to find germs in the laboratory is to ‘grow’ them on agar plates, this can take several days, will not find viruses and does not work well if the patient has already been given antibiotics. Another way to identify germs is to look for their DNA using lots of separate tests. However, this type of test can’t tell which antibiotics will work and make it difficult to rule-out infection, therefore many patients receive unnecessary treatment with antibiotics. This produces side-effects for the patient and contributes to an increase in bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics.
We will use a new test that can look at all DNA in a patient’s sample. Computer programs will be used to find any DNA in the sample that does not belong to the patient, as this is likely to be from the germ causing the infection. The genome of the germ contains information about which antibiotics will treat the infection. If no germ DNA is found then we may be able to use this test to rule-out infection, and stop unnecessary antibiotic treatment.
We will collect samples from children who might have an infection. Following ethical approval at participating centres, we will perform the new test on the study samples, and test them in the usual way.REC name
Wales REC 6
REC reference
22/WA/0341
Date of REC Opinion
25 Nov 2022
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion