Unveiling the Pathogenic Bacteria Causing Descending Necrotizing Mediastinitis.

The combination of maxillofacial infections (MI) with descending necrotizing mediastinitis (DNM) is a complex disease characterized by rapid development and high mortality. Here, we performed metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) using samples from 21 patients with MI and eight patients with DNM. In this study, we found that the species richness of the DNM group was higher than that of the MI group, and the species diversity of the DNM group was higher than that of the MI group, with no statistically significant differences between groups (P > 0.05). LefSE analysis revealed that the main species differing between groups were , , , and ( and ). In addition, the PLS-DA analysis revealed that the dominant groups in the DNM group at the species level were , , , , , and . Next, we correlated the clinical characteristics of the patients with the relative abundance of the pathogens identified in the LefSe and PLS-DA analyses. The relative abundance of was positively correlated with C-reactive protein (CRP) and calcitoninogen (PCT) but negatively correlated with the percentage of lymphocytes (Lymph%) (P < 0.05). On the other hand, was positively correlated with the percentage of neutrophils (Neut%) and glycated hemoglobin (GLU) (P < 0.05), and was positively correlated with CRP (P < 0.05).