Abstract
This case report presents a 1-year-old boy from China, with sudden onset of fever, convulsion, and sleepiness, screened for viral DNA in blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) sample using next-generation sequencing (NGS) to diagnose herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) encephalitis, further validated by PCR. After acyclovir treatment, the patient’s symptom disappeared and HSV-1 DNA unique reads decreased from 4290 to zero in CSF, and from 23 to zero in blood detected by NGS. The clinical presentation and outcome were consistent with the pathogenic diagnostic results of NGS. NGS of CSF samples can be used as a diagnostic assay for HSV-1 encephalitis and also might be a semi-quantitative method for evaluation of treatment effect.
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Funding
This work was supported by the Special Fund of the Pediatric Medical Coordinated Development Center of Beijing Hospitals Authority (No. XTZD20180501), Beijing Hospital Authority “Dengfeng” Talent Training Plan (DFL 20181201), and National Science and Technology Major Project of China (No. 2018ZX10305409).
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This study was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of Beijing Children’s Hospital affiliated to Capital Medical University (No. 2017-74).
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Liu, Ll., Guo, Ly., Dong, J. et al. Next-generation sequencing technology as a powerful detection and semi-quantitative method for herpes simplex virus type 1 in pediatric encephalitis. J. Neurovirol. 26, 273–276 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13365-019-00803-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13365-019-00803-5