Rapid and accurate diagnosis of brain abscess caused by Nocardia asiatica in combination of Ziehl-Neelsen stain and metagenomics next generation sequencing.

A 61-year-old woman with history of left breast cancer resection and diabetes mellitus, who reported a 7-month discontinuous cough and fever, was admitted to our hospital. On the third day in the hospital, she had a sudden loss of consciousness. From the brain MRI (Figure 1-(1) A-D), ring enhancing mass lesions in the horizontal, coronal and sagittal gadolinium-enhanced T1-weighted images were identified in the right anterior temporal lobe. Based on her fever history and MRI features, it suggested that the temporal lesions were abscesses.