The Bacteriology of Pleural Infection Using Next Generation Sequencing: The Oxford Pleural Infection Metagenomics Studies (TORPIDS)

Pleural Infection (PI) is a common, severe and complicated disease with considerable morbidity and mortality1,2. Patients develop pleural effusions of frankly infected fluid. The understanding of pleural infection microbiome could improve patient clinical management, however the knowledge remains incomplete. Sequencing of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene is a reliable methodology to discovery the total microbiome of complex samples.

The investigators designed a translational study to study the bacteriology of pleural infection. Pleural fluid specimens from a) the "Prospective validation of the RAPID clinical risk prediction score in adult patients with pleural infection: the PILOT study" (3) clinical trial and b) non-pleural infection patients will be subjected to bacterial DNA extraction followed by 16S rRNA next generation sequencing. Moreover, the investigators will study the association between bacterial patterns and important clinical outcomes including survival, duration of hospitalisation and need for surgery.