Background: Peritoneal dialysis (PD) peritonitis is a feared complication of PD, with significant sequelae for the patient. The cause of PD peritonitis is largely due to a single organism (≥75% of cases) and rarely due to multiple organisms.
Methods: In this pilot study, we investigated 25 cases of PD peritonitis with 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) next-generation sequencing (NGS) techniques.
Results: Total concordance between culture and NGS was noted. In addition, the NGS technique was highly sensitive, identifying 33 different bacteria (including a nonculturable bacterium), compared to 13 bacterial species using culture-based techniques. This was counterbalanced by a lack of specificity with NGS, largely due to the small size of the 16S rRNA gene segment sequenced.
Conclusions: For the clinician, our results suggest that PD peritonitis may often be a polymicrobial disease and that treating a dominant organism may not totally eradicate all bacterial contamination within the peritoneum. For the clinical scientist, additional use of a larger 16S rRNA segment (V5 or V6) is likely to outperform the use of the V4 segment only.
Keywords: 16S rRNA; Next-generation sequencing; peritoneal dialysis; peritonitis.