1224. Investigation of Infectious Etiologies in the Lower Respiratory Tract from Pediatric Patients with Unexpected Cardiopulmonary Deterioration using Next-Generation Sequencing

BACKGROUND: In pediatric patients, unexpected cardiopulmonary deterioration with or without following cardiopulmonary arrest (CPA) are rare events, but can be caused by any of several etiologies, including infectious diseases. The most common cause of out-of-hospital CPA in children ≤12 years old was sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), whereas infectious diseases were responsible for approximately 10% of the CPA cases. However, the role of infection may have been underestimated as triggers of SIDS or CPA. This study aimed to investigate the infectious etiologies in pediatric patients with unexpected cardiopulmonary deterioration using next-generation sequencing (NGS). METHODS: A total of 16 pediatric patients who were admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit with unexpected cardiopulmonary deterioration with or without following CPA were enrolled. Ten bronchoalveolar fluid (BALF) and six transtracheal aspirates (TTA) samples obtained in the acute phase were used to prepare NGS libraries. The libraries were sequenced on HiSeq and analyzed using metagenome analysis tools. RESULTS: In ten of 16 patients, one or more bacterial/viral pathogens were detected in the BALF or TTA specimens using NGS. Compared to the conventional culture and viral antigen test results, an additional 6 bacterial (e.g., Chlamydia trachomatis) and 4 viral pathogens (e.g., coxsackievirus A6 and human coronavirus NL63) were identified by NGS in four of ten patients in whom no causative pathogen had been identified by conventional culture and viral antigen tests. A summary of the detected pathogens is listed in Table 1. Notably, sequencing results allowed us to define genotypes for all of the detected viruses in a single NGS assay per patient. Furthermore, based on phylogenetic analysis of the VP1 region, the coxsackievirus A6 strain detected in this study belongs to lineage E2 and harbors an amino acid change (T283A), a substitution that has potential to cause severe illness. Table 1 [Image: see text] CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that viral and bacterial infection are common triggers in unexpected cardiopulmonary deterioration in pediatric patients. NGS has the potential to contribute to the clarification of the etiology of pediatric critical illness. DISCLOSURES: All Authors: No reported disclosures