Case Report: Severe psittacosis in an elderly patient without avian exposure: diagnosis via metagenomic next-generation sequencing and rapid response to doxycycline
Xuxin Sun, Qihui Jiao, Xiaoyan Fu, Tingyi Xie, Wei Xie, Hong Cheng, Sheng Chen · 2025
Read Case Report: Severe psittacosis in an elderly patient without avian exposure: diagnosis via metagenomic next-generation sequencing and rapid response to doxycycline by Xuxin Sun, Qihui Jiao, Xiaoyan Fu, Tingyi Xie, Wei Xie, Hong Cheng, Sheng Chen (2025) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-12756104.txt.
Description
Xuxin Sun and co-authors report a severe case of psittacosis, a lung infection normally caught from birds, in a woman with no bird contact. Their 2025 case report describes a seventy-three-year-old whose fever and pneumonia resisted broad antibiotics. Standard blood tests failed to name the germ.
A metagenomic scan of her blood on the fifth hospital day found the culprit bacterium, though only fourteen matching reads appeared. Doxycycline started at once, and her fever broke within a day while inflammation markers settled. Pet parrots nearby may have shed the germ into the air. The authors call for stronger monitoring of bird reservoirs and praise the scan's power for hard cases.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Xuxin Sun, Qihui Jiao, Xiaoyan Fu, Tingyi Xie, Wei Xie, Hong Cheng, Sheng Chen |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2025 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 16 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |