Association between normalized Mycoplasma pneumoniae sequence reads and severity of pediatric pneumonia: a cross-sectional study

Mycoplasma pneumoniae (MP) is a leading cause of pediatric community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), with an increasing proportion of severe cases in the post-coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) era. High-throughput targeted next-generation sequencing (tNGS) enables semi-quantitative detection of MP; however, the clinical significance of normalized MP sequence reads derived from oropharyngeal swabs remains unclear.