Data and statistical analysis
infection, PJI
CHRONIC INFECTIONS, INFECTION, POSITIVE
Patients with PJI were divided into acute and chronic infections according to the duration of infection, as described by To assess the concordance of microbiological results between positive culture and positive mNGS, categorisation was determined as follows: (i) complete concordance: identical organism detected, (ii) partial concordance: additional organism detected by culture or additional organism detected by mNGS, and (iii) discordance: different organism detected.Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS software (version 24, IBM Inc., Armonk, New York). Demographic data were described as mean and standard deviation (SD). Categorical variables were expressed as percentages. Student’s t-test was used to calculate differences between groups for continuous variables. Positive rates were calculated for microbiological and non-microbiological diagnostic tests. Chi-squared test or Fisher’s exact test was used to measure positivity rates between groups, as appropriate. McNemar’s test was used to compare mNGS and culture of samples within groups. The rank sum test was used to compare the number of mNGS pathogen sequencing reads between groups. Statistical significance was defined as p<0.05 (for two-tailed test).