Case Report: First Report of T-Cell Large Granular Lymphocytic Leukemia With NPL-DHX9 Gene Fusion Successfully Treated With Cladribine: Clinical Experience and Literature Review

Febrile Neutropenia as the First Manifestation of T-Cell Large Granular Lymphocytic Leukemia

T-cell large granular lymphocytic (T-LGL) leukemia is a rare lymphoproliferative disorder, characterized by peripheral blood and bone marrow infiltration with large granular lymphocytes (LGL), splenomegaly, cytopenias, and a frequent association with autoimmune diseases. Recurrent bacterial infections due to neutropenia are the main reason why patients come to medical attention. Despite not being a curable disease, T-LGL leukemia usually has an indolent course, with deaths mainly resulting from severe infections. Treatment is often not required, however, when needed, aims to relieve symptoms, and reduce infections and transfusion needs. We describe a case of an 86-year-old female patient with febrile neutropenia, diagnosed with T-LGL leukemia after the resolution of infection and exclusion of other causes of neutropenia. A "watch and wait" approach was established after a multidisciplinary discussion. This case shows a frequent presentation of a rare disease, as well as the approach from diagnosis to treatment, reminding clinicians that T-LGL leukemia should be considered in the differential diagnosis of adults with febrile neutropenia.

Application of metagenomic next-generation sequencing in the diagnosis of pulmonary invasive fungal disease

Background

Metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) is increasingly being used to detect pathogens directly from clinical specimens. However, the optimal application of mNGS and subsequent result interpretation can be challenging. In addition, studies reporting the use of mNGS for the diagnosis of invasive fungal infections (IFIs) are rare.

Objective

We critically evaluated the performance of mNGS in the diagnosis of pulmonary IFIs, by conducting a multicenter retrospective analysis. The methodological strengths of mNGS were recognized, and diagnostic cutoffs were determined.

Methods

A total of 310 patients with suspected pulmonary IFIs were included in this study. Conventional microbiological tests (CMTs) and mNGS were performed in parallel on the same set of samples. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to evaluate the performance of the logarithm of reads per kilobase per million mapped reads [lg(RPKM)], and read counts were used to predict true-positive pathogens.

Result

The majority of the selected patients (86.5%) were immunocompromised. Twenty species of fungi were detected by mNGS, which was more than was achieved with standard culture methods. Peripheral blood lymphocyte and monocyte counts, as well as serum albumin levels, were significantly negatively correlated with fungal infection. In contrast, C-reactive protein and procalcitonin levels showed a significant positive correlation with fungal infection. ROC curves showed that mNGS [and especially lg(RPKM)] was superior to CMTs in its diagnostic performance. The area under the ROC curve value obtained for lg(RPKM) in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid of patients with suspected pulmonary IFIs, used to predict true-positive pathogens, was 0.967, and the cutoff value calculated from the Youden index was −5.44.

Conclusions

In this study, we have evaluated the performance of mNGS-specific indicators that can identify pathogens in patients with IFIs more accurately and rapidly than CMTs, which will have important clinical implications.