Microbial Sequencing Concordance with Biomarkers for Diagnosing Joint Infections

2,011 synovial fluid specimens from 2020–2022 were analyzed to evaluate microbial next-generation sequencing against standard diagnostic criteria. The analysis shows NGS had 76.4% sensitivity and 92.3% specificity compared to the ICM 2018 minor criteria for periprosthetic joint infection. This dataset, authored by Craig D. Tipton and shared under CC-BY-4.0, supports research into improving infection diagnostics in hip and knee arthroplasty.

Use Cases

• Validate diagnostic models for periprosthetic joint infection based on synovial biomarker concordance.
• Compare the performance of microbial sequencing to traditional biomarkers like CRP, WBC, and PMN percentage.
• Investigate the prevalence and role of uncommon bacterial species in joint infections missed by conventional culture.

Strengths

• Analysis includes 2,011 specimens, providing a substantial sample size for evaluation.
• Performance metrics (sensitivity, specificity, accuracy) are reported with 95% confidence intervals.
• Data spans a three-year collection period from 2020 to 2022.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The 20.0 KB file size suggests the data is likely summary statistics or a small table, not the raw sequencing data.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Retrospective analysis of synovial fluid specimens submitted by outpatient surgical clinics to MicroGenDX for matched biomarker and NGS analysis.

Time Range

2020–2022

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-11 05:25:43; freshness should be verified.