传染病对全世界的公共卫生构成严重威胁。传统的传染病诊断方法往往灵敏度低、侵入性大、检测时间长。迫切需要用户友好的现场检测来进行传染病的早期诊断、治疗监测和预后预测。游离DNA（cfDNA）是一种广泛应用于肿瘤学和妊娠学的有前途的非侵入性生物标志物，在诊断传染病的临床应用中显示出巨大的潜力。在这里，我们从病原体和宿主的角度讨论传染病的最新 cfDNA 研究。我们还讨论了该领域的技术挑战并提出了克服这些挑战的解决方案。此外，我们还对 cfDNA 作为传染病诊断、治疗和预后标志物的潜力进行了展望。版权所有 © 2024 Elsevier Ltd。保留所有权利。

Infectious diseases pose serious threats to public health worldwide. Conventional diagnostic methods for infectious diseases often exhibit low sensitivity, invasiveness, and long turnaround times. User-friendly point-of-care tests are urgently needed for early diagnosis, treatment monitoring, and prognostic prediction of infectious diseases. Cell-free DNA (cfDNA), a promising non-invasive biomarker widely used in oncology and pregnancy, has shown great potential in clinical applications for diagnosing infectious diseases. Here, we discuss the most recent cfDNA research on infectious diseases from both the pathogen and host perspectives. We also discuss the technical challenges in this field and propose solutions to overcome them. Additionally, we provide an outlook on the potential of cfDNA as a diagnostic, treatment, and prognostic marker for infectious diseases.Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.