Figure 1.

Study cohort profiles. Two hundred eighty‐five samples for nanopore 16S amplicon sequencing were obtained from 178 patients who underwent neurosurgery. Among them, 40 samples were sequencing positive, and 23 samples were culture positive. While all 40 sequencing‐positive samples were genuine infection, 18 culture‐positive samples were identified as genuine infection, and five were suspected of being contaminated. The final number of samples that were genuine infection was 41. Among the 40 sequencing‐positive samples, only 17 samples showed consistent results with the culture study, and 23 samples showed false‐negative results of the culture study. These were also divided into groups of initial samples (n = 30) and follow‐up samples (n = 10) depending on when the samples were collected. In each group, the numbers of false‐negative results of the culture study were 15 and 8, respectively. [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]