Study of microbial species in cholesteatoma

An acquired cholesteatoma generally occurs as a consequence of otitis media and eustachian tube dysfunction. Patients with acquired cholesteatoma generally present with chronic otorrhea and progressive conductive hearing loss. There are many microbes reportedly associated with acquired cholesteatoma. However, conventional culture-based techniques show a typically low detection rate for many bacteria and fungi. Metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS), an emerging powerful platform, offers higher sensitivity and higher throughput for evaluating many samples at once. In this study, we use mNGS to identify microbes in cholesteatoma.