342. Clinical Utility of a Next Generation Sequencing Test for Pathogen Detection in Pediatric Central Nervous System Infections

BACKGROUND: Pediatric central nervous system (CNS) infections are potentially life-threatening and may incur significant morbidity. Identifying a pathogen is important, both in terms of guiding therapeutic management, but also in characterizing prognosis. However, standard care testing by culture, serology, and PCR is often unable to identify a pathogen. We examined use of next generation sequencing (NGS) of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in detecting an organism in children with CNS infections. METHODS: We prospectively enrolled children with CSF pleocytosis and suspected CNS infection admitted to 3 tertiary pediatric hospitals. After standard care testing had been performed, the remaining CSF was submitted for analysis by NGS. RESULTS: We enrolled 70 subjects over a 12-month recruitment period. A putative organism was isolated from CSF in 24 (34.3%) subjects by any diagnostic modality. NGS of the CSF samples identified a pathogen in 20 (28.6%) subjects. False positive results by NGS were identified in 2 patients. There were no cases in which NGS alone identified a pathogen. In 4 cases, a putative organism was recovered by standard care testing of the CSF, but not by CSF NGS. CSF culture recovered a putative organism in 12 cases (12.1%). A CSF PCR multiplex panel was utilized for 51 subjects. An organism was detected in 15 of these (29.4%). Using a reference composite of standard care testing, we determined the sensitivity and specificity of CSF NGS to be 83.3% (95% CI, 62.6–95.3%) and 91.3% (95% CI, 79.2–97.6%) respectively. CONCLUSION: Sequencing of CSF has the potential to rapidly and comprehensively identify infection with a single test. Further studies are needed to determine the optimal use of NGS for diagnosis of CNS infections. DISCLOSURES: All Authors: No reported disclosures