Clinical Question: Show In diagnosing patients with suspected urinary tract infections, what is the accuracy and utility of point-of-care tests compared to the current standard of urine microscopy, culture and antibiotic sensitivity analysis? Background, Current Practice and Advantages over Existing Technology: Background Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are among the most common types of infections, with an estimated 92 million people affected worldwide in 2013.1 The global burden of this disease is rising, with 16.1% increase in age-standardised incidence between 1990 and 2013 and 58,000 years lost to disability (YLD) in 2003 alone.1 UTIs are also a significant cause of mortality especially among the elderly population with 4835 deaths in England and Wales reported in 2012.2 UTI symptoms accounted for 1-3% of all primary care consultations3 and it was the main indication for 13.7% of community antibiotic prescriptions.4 The 1994/5 cost estimates of treating UTIs in the National Health Service were £124 million.5 Two decades on, it can only be assumed that with the rising prevalence of UTIs combined with the emergence of antibiotic-resistant organisms, the health and economic burden of the disease is likely to have increased. UTIs are broadly defined as infection of the urethra, bladder, ureters or kidneys by non-commensal micro-organisms, most commonly Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus saprophyticus and Enterococcus faecalis.6 Other causative uropathogens include Enterobacteriaceae sp. (Proteus mirabilis and Klebsiella sp.), group B streptococci, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Citrobacter sp.They frequently arise from peri-urethral contamination by uropathogens found in faecal flora which then ascend into the bladder via the urethra.7 Further migration of uropathogens from the bladder via the ureters into the kidneys results in pyelonephritis. UTIs are categorised as either uncomplicated or complicated. Uncomplicated UTIs can be further sub-classified into cystitis (lower urinary tract) and pyelonephritis (upper urinary tract). Patients with cystitis typically present with dysuria, frequency, urgency, haematuria and/or suprapubic pain; pyelonephritis classically manifests with flank pain, costovertebral angle tenderness, fever, nausea and vomiting in addition to urinary symptoms.7,8 Children present with atypical symptoms such as abdominal pain, vomiting, fever and irritability, and often without urinary tract symptoms.9 UTIs in children could have serious sequelae of renal scarring and end-stage renal failure.8,9 Uncomplicated UTIs occur in otherwise healthy individuals with no underlying structural or neurological urinary tract abnormalities. Risk factors include female gender, prior UTI, sexual activity, vaginal infection, diabetes, obesity and genetic susceptibility.10 Complicated UTIs occur when the urinary tract or host defense is compromised, e.g., secondary to urinary obstruction, urinary retention caused by neurological disease, immunosuppression (including diabetes), renal failure, renal transplantation, pregnancy and the presence of foreign bodies such as calculi, indwelling catheters or other drainage devices.8 These patients are particularly susceptible to recurrent UTIs, perinephric abscesses, renal failure, urosepsis and death.11 Current practice The current standard for diagnosing patients with suspected UTI is microscopy, culture and antibiotic sensitivity analysis of a midstream, clean-catch urine specimen, although this is not recommended for first-time uncomplicated UTI. The results of these tests are typically available within 24-72 hours after the microbiology laboratory receives the specimen.12 In routine practice, clinicians can perform a urine dipstick test which confirms the presence of a urinary tract infection with 45% sensitivity and 99% specificity based on positive urine leucocyte esterase and nitrites.13 However, the test cannot specify the causative uropathogen(s) involved and antibiotic sensitivities. Under usual circumstances when patients present with UTI symptoms, clinicians prescribe antibiotics empirically (for broad-spectrum coverage of the most common uropathogens) or based on a positive urine dipstick test.14 The corollary of empirical treatment is the emergence of multi-drug-resistant uropathogenic organisms especially among Enterobacteriaceae family members, which are increasingly acquiring extended-spectrum β-lactamases (ESBLs), such as cefotaximases (CTX-Ms), oxacillinases (OXAs), AmpC-type β-lactamases and carbapenemases.8 Empirical therapy without evidence of infection can also needlessly put patients at risk of serious super-infections i.e. Clostridium difficile colitis and MRSA sepsis.8,15 The prevalence of these multi-drug resistant infections is on the rise, which will evidently augment the health and economic burden of this disease.4 Asymptomatic bacteriuria in women is defined as isolation of the same bacterial strain in quantitative counts ≥105 CFU/mL in two consecutive, voided, clean-catch urine specimens from an individual without clinical signs and symptoms of UTI.11,16 For pregnant women, if two urine culture results are positive for significant bacteriuria, a course of antibiotics is indicated.17 A Cochrane review found that screening of pregnant women for asymptomatic bacteriuria with urine cultures reduces the incidence of pyelonephritis, low fetal birthweight, and preterm delivery, and that it is also cost-effective.18 Management of UTIs in patients with indwelling urethral catheters has its own challenges. It is well established that patients with indwelling catheters are at increased risk of UTIs, along with pyelonephritis, urosepsis, renal stones and renal failure.19 Counterintuitively, the evidence states that screening for asymptomatic bacteriuria and antibiotic prophylaxis in this population, is ineffective in preventing sepsis.11,20,21 Instead, indwelling catheters should only be inserted when indicated, discontinued when it is no longer necessary and antibiotics should only be prescribed on sound clinical grounds (i.e. signs of sepsis) rather than urine culture results alone.17 Advantages over existing technology Point-of-care (POC) testing for UTIs can potentially:
Details of Technology: We identified 20 commercially available point-of-care UTI tests. Five of these point-of-care UTI tests are culture-based devices, which all require mid-stream samples of urine. In all five tests, one can compare bacterial colony densities against the reference chart to semi-quantify bacterial load. It is also possible to evaluate the species present on the culture medium by colour-matching the chromogenic media with a reference chart in four of these tests. One culture-based test, namely FLEXICULT™, additionally provides basic antibiotic sensitivity analysis. All of the samples need to be cultured in an incubator at a temperature of 35-37°C. A result for the culture-based devices can be expected within 16-24 hours. The (semi)automated urine analysers have the same read-out as the urine dipstick test, (i.e. specific gravity, pH, leukocytes, nitrite, protein, glucose, ketone, urobilinogen, bilirubin, erythrocytes) although the human error involved in visual interpretation can be eliminated. The parameters of interest for detecting UTI are positive nitrites and leukocytes. The enzymatic assay, Uriscreen®, looks at catalase activity in the urine sample to detect bacteriuria. Urine analysers and enzymatic assays principally aim to detect the presence of bacteriuria but provide limited information on the causative pathogen and antibiotic sensitivities. Overall, their relative rapidity, simplicity and user-friendliness appear to be their key advantages over the current standard of laboratory based urine culture, microscopy and sensitivity analysis. A summary of the commercial POC UTI tests available can be found in Table 1.
Patient Group and Use:
Importance: Urine microscopy, culture and sensitivity analysis in a microbiology laboratory is considered the reference standard for UTI diagnosis. However, this requires adequate laboratory facilities, it is expensive and labour-intensive (needing trained technicians and microbiologists to interpret the results), culminating in a 24-72 hour delay in diagnosis. Antibiotic prescribing following urine dipstick screening has been a widely adopted management approach for UTIs with one study showing this to be cost-effective if the value of saving a day of moderately bad symptoms is valued at ≥ £10.22 However, this practice is also known to be a major contributor to the emergence of multi-drug resistant bacterial strains (e.g., Enterobactericeae with extended-spectrum beta-lactamases and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)).8,15 For this reason, there has been growing interest in developing new and efficient technology, which can (1) rapidly and accurately diagnose UTIs and (2) inform the clinician on which antibiotic to prescribe for maximum therapeutic benefit. Prompt diagnosis and treatment of UTI is necessary in reducing the morbidity and mortality associated with urosepsis, especially in the paediatric and geriatric population. However, in a primary care setting, full culture-based assay with microscopy and sensitivity analysis are not feasible. Implementation of an accurate, user-friendly UTI POC device which performs pathogen identification and sensitivity assays, promises to have far-reaching impact on clinical practice, patient outcomes and the demand on health-care resources. Previous Research: We retrieved twelve studies which assessed the diagnostic accuracy of eleven POC UTI devices. We could not obtain accuracy data for the nine remaining devices. Five of these studies evaluated the accuracy of culture-based devices (FLEXICULT™, Uricult Trio (2), Dipstreak, Diaslide); six examined the enzymatic assay (1Uriscreen) and one study evaluated the diagnostic accuracy and considered the clinical impact of six POC urine analysers (Aution Eleven™, Aution Micro, Uryxxon Relax, Unisys 1100, Clinitek Status +, Urilyzer ® 100 Pro). These devices were tested in different sub-populations (children, pregnant women, patients with indwelling catheters, general population etc.) and most of the samples were taken in a primary care setting. The following tables present the diagnostic accuracies for each of these devices based on existing research, and if data was not available, this is also indicated. The accuracies of the culture-based devices and catalase enzymatic assay were compared to the urine microscopy and culture reference standard (Table 2). The urine analysers were compared to the laboratory urinalysis reference test, Urisys 2400 (Table 3). Accuracy compared to existing technology FLEXICULT™ Bongard et al.23 evaluated the analytical laboratory performance of the FLEXICULT™ device in 200 urine samples compared to urine microscopy and culture. These samples were submitted in the course of routine patient care and selected for analysis by Public Health Wales laboratory staff. 124 samples were submitted from outpatients (primary care, outpatient clinics and emergency department), and 76 from hospital inpatients. Specific information on the demographics of their patient population was not reported. According to this study, this test has a sensitivity of 87.0% (95%CI: 67.9-95.5%), specificity of 83.2% (95%CI: 74.7-89.2), positive predictive value (PPV) of 54.1% (95%CI: 38.4-69.0) and negative predictive value (NPV) of 96.6% (95%CI: 90.4-98.8%), for semi-quantification of bacterial load. Further studies are currently under way to assess the diagnostic accuracy and utility.24,25 Uricult Trio Two studies assessed the diagnostic accuracy of the Uricult Trio dip-slide test. However, with no confidence intervals provided, the data from both studies must be interpreted with caution.
Of note in these studies is the rather high prevalence rate. DipStreak (Chromostreak) Yagupsky et al.28 examined the accuracy of the DipStreak culture-based device compared to conventional urine microscopy and culture using 1070 clean-catch urine samples (251 from hospitalized patients and 819 from outpatients). No details were provided on how the patients in the study presented, how they selected the samples or the patient demographic. They reported that the DipStreak test had a sensitivity of 95.7%, specificity of 99.2%, PPV of 98.5% and NPV of 97.7%. 270/1070 (25%) samples were positive for significant bacteriuria on urine culture. No confidence intervals were reported. Diaslide Rosenberg et al.29 evaluated the accuracy of the DiaSlide culture-based device. Samples were initially obtained from 700 patients— 30% of the samples from geriatric and chronically ill hospitalised patients and 70% of the samples from the hospital wards and outpatient clinics. 700 samples were pre-screened for catalase enzyme activity using the Uriscreen® test (refer below), of which 473 samples had positive catalase activity and 227 samples had negative catalase activity. The 473 samples with positive catalase activity were then tested with the DiaSlide culture test and its accuracy was compared against conventional urine microscopy and culture. Overall, the test had 98.3% sensitivity, 97.5% specificity, PPV of 98.3% and NPV of 97.5% when compared to the laboratory culture results and when the samples were prescreened with Uriscreen®. 243/473 (51.3%) were positive for significant bacteriuria on urine culture when the threshold was 104CFU/ml. Confidence intervals were not reported. Uriscreen ® Six studies evaluated the accuracy of the Uriscreen catalase enzymatic assay in diagnosing UTIs.30-35 Confidence intervals were not provided in three studies. Pregnant women
Catheterised patients
Paediatric patients
Urine analysers One study by Schot et al.36 evaluated the diagnostic accuracies of six POC urine analysers compared to the laboratory-based urine analyser, Urisys 2400, using 77 urine samples submitted for routine investigation at one of the four participating general practices. All devices had 100% sensitivity (67-100%), specificities ranging from 94-100%, PPV ranging from 73-100% and NPV of 100% (93-100%) for nitrite detection, which is considered the main marker for UTIs. However, the study would have had greater external validity if these devices were compared with conventional culture, because in reality, urine microscopy and culture is used clinically to diagnose UTIs, not urinalysis. We did not identify any published research studies for the following devices: onSite, URI TEX, Uro-Dipcheck ® 240e, Convergys ® UroStar 100, URIT-30, BioDoctor BS-502, AS120, E-Reader 120 and BC401. Table 2. Accuracy of point-of-care UTI culture-based devices and enzymatic assays
* Unclear measure of error. Table 3. Accuracy of POC urine analysers compared to the primary laboratory reference test (Urisys 2400).36
Impact compared to existing technology There are currently no studies evaluating the clinical impact or utility of culture-based POC UTI devices in a primary care setting, but two study protocols for evaluating the FLEXICULT device have been published: Bates et al. aim to evaluate the clinical and cost-effectiveness of FLEXICULT compared to the usual care arm with the study outcomes being appropriate antibiotic prescribing at day 3 in both arms, and incidence of treatment failures, recurrence, complications, hospital admissions and health care costs at 3 months follow up.24 The study by Holm et al. primarily aims to compare the rates of appropriate antibiotic prescribing in the FLEXICULT and usual care arm.25 Schot et al.’s study36 assessed the user-friendliness of six commercially available point-of-care urine analysers as the secondary outcome measure. A sample of seven GP assistants and two midwives who were unfamiliar with these devices were asked to perform tests on all six POC urinalysers in random order. After each test, they were asked to complete a standardised questionnaire, which contained five questions concerning user-friendliness of the analyser, test procedure and susceptibility to flaws (in preparation of the analyser, performing the analysis and reading the test results). First-time users were then asked if they deemed the device useful in their daily practice, if it would improve their productivity and efficiency and if it would lead to more accurate evaluation of the urine test strip. The authors also collated data from manufacturers’ information sheets to evaluate user-friendliness. The results of the questionnaire were that all first-time users found the POC urine analysers easy to use, and most frequently did not have problems getting a read-out. The potential for error in the process of manual handling and result interpretation was considered lowest in Uryxxon Relax (Macherey Nagel) and Urisys 1100 (Roche). Overall, the Uryxxon Relax was found to be the most user-friendly by six of the nine first-time users. The majority felt that these devices would be useful in daily practice (6/9), improve efficiency and productivity, and lead to more accurate evaluation of the urine test strip (7/9).36 Guidelines and Recommendations The Health Protection Agency recommends that urine culture should not be routinely performed in adult, non-pregnant women aged 65 years and under with urinary symptoms unless they have severe or ≥3 urinary symptoms (dysuria, frequency, urgency, haematuria and/or suprapubic pain) with the absence of vaginal discharge or irritation. In women with mild symptoms, a urine dipstick test is recommended before the sample is sent for culture. Urine should be sent for culture in symptomatic men and pregnant women, patients with suspected pyelonephritis, or previously failed antibiotic treatment or persistent symptoms, as well as those with recurrent UTI, abnormalities of the genitourinary tract and renal impairment. Urine should not be sent for culture in the asymptomatic elderly or those with indwelling catheters based on positive dipstick tests, as bacteriuria is common and treatment would be unnecessary. UTIs should be considered in any sick child and every young child with unexplained fever > 38⁰C.17 NICE has not published any guidelines for treatment of UTIs in the adult, pregnant or catheterised patient population, rather 6 ‘quality standards’ which provide guidance on how to diagnose or manage a UTI under limited circumstances.37 They have published a clinical guideline on diagnosis and management of UTIs in the paediatric population.38 In short, this guideline includes information on the various clinical manifestations of UTI as well as information on recommended urine-testing strategies according to age group. Urgent urine microscopy and culture, empirical antibiotic therapy, and referral to specialist paediatric care should be arranged for children < 3 years old with suspected UTI or at intermediate/high risk of serious illness. For children > 3 years of age, the guideline states that dipstick testing for leukocyte esterase and nitrite is a safe and adequate alternative to microscopy and culture for diagnosing UTIs; if the results return positive, the sample can then be sent for microscopy and culture. Antibiotic treatment can be commenced if nitrites were positive on the urine dipstick test. The guideline also lists the indications for urine culture and further investigation (i.e. imaging, urodynamic studies). SIGN appears to have a more comprehensive summary of recommendations for diagnosing and managing suspected UTIs in adults, pregnant women and patients with indwelling catheters, with the level of evidence indicated with each recommendation.15 The guidelines also discuss the role of ‘near-patient’ testing (urine microscopy and dipstick testing) for diagnosing UTIs in each of these sub-populations. For example, the guideline stipulates that dipstick testing should not be used to diagnose UTI in patients with catheters (Recommendation 6.2.2, Grade B evidence) or screen for bacterial UTI in pregnant women at the first or subsequent antenatal visits (Recommendation 4.2, Grade A evidence).15 It also states that dipstick testing can be used to guide management in otherwise healthy women under 65 years of age presenting with mild or ≤2 symptoms of UTI (Recommendation 3.2.3, Grade B evidence).15 Briefly, the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and the European Society for Microbiology and Infectious Diseases have jointly published “International Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Treatment of Acute Uncomplicated Cystitis and Pyelonephritis in Women,”39 however this document makes recommendations on treatment rather than diagnosis of UTIs. In addition, IDSA have published “International Clinical Practice Guidelines on the Diagnosis, Prevention, and Treatment of Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infection in Adults”.19 Future directions: Researchers are developing new POC UTI tests such as microfluidics,40 biosensor technologies,41 real-time optical screening systems42 and mobile phone-based micro-photometric systems43 for rapid pathogen identification and susceptibility testing. There is also work in progress in finding new molecular markers e.g. heparin-binding protein that can diagnose UTIs with higher sensitivity and specificity as opposed to leucocyte esterase and nitrites alone.44 Research Questions:
Suggested next steps:
Acknowledgements: The authors would like to thank Nia Roberts for helpful discussions. This work is supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Diagnostic Evidence Co-operative Oxford at Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health. This report was prepared by the Primary Care Diagnostic Horizon Scanning Centre Oxford. Authors: Sarah T. Thomas, Carl Heneghan, Christopher P. Price, Ann Van den Bruel, Annette Plüddemann Contact details: Dr. Annette Plüddemann; Email: References:
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12. Pagana K, Pagana T, Pagana T. Mosby’s Diagnostic and Laboratory Test Reference.12th ed. St Louis, United States: Mosby; 2013:968. 13. St John A, Boyd JC, Lowes AJ, Price CP. The use of urinary dipstick tests to exclude urinary tract infection: a systematic review of the literature. Am J Clin Pathol. 2006;126(3):428-36. 14. Morgan MG, McKenzie H. Controversies in the laboratory diagnosis of community-acquired urinary tract infection. Eur J Clin Microbiol Infect Dis. 1993;12(7):491-504. 15. Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network. Management of suspected bacterial urinary tract infection in adults. Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network site. Published 2012. Available at: http://www.sign.ac.uk/guidelines/fulltext/88/. Accessed Jan 20, 2016.
17. Health Protection Agency. Diagnosis of UTI Quick Reference Guide for Primary Care. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/323398/UTI_guidelines_with_RCGP_logo.pdf. Published 2011. Accessed Jan 20, 2016. 18. Widmer M, Lopez I, Gülmezoglu AM, Mignini L, Roganti A. Duration of treatment for asymptomatic bacteriuria during pregnancy. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2015;11;11:CD000491. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD000491.pub3.
22. Turner D et al., Cost effectiveness of management strategies for urinary tract infections: results from randomised controlled trial. BMJ. 2010;340: c346. doi: 10.1136/bmj.c346. 23. Bongard E et al. Analytic laboratory performance of a point of care urine culture kit for diagnosis and antibiotic susceptibility testing. Eur J Clin Microbiol Infect Dis. 2015;34(10): 2111-2119. doi: 10.1007/s10096-015-2460-4. 24. Bates J et al. Point of care testing for urinary tract infection in primary care (POETIC): protocol for a randomised controlled trial of the clinical and cost effectiveness of FLEXICULT™ informed management of uncomplicated UTI in primary care. BMC Fam Pract. 2014;15:187. doi: 10.1186/s12875-014-0187-4. 25. Holm A et al. Point of care susceptibility testing in primary care - does it lead to a more appropriate prescription of antibiotics in patients with uncomplicated urinary tract infections? Protocol for a randomized controlled trial. BMC Fam Pract. 2015;16:106. doi: 10.1186/s12875-015-0322-x. 26. Anacleto FE et al. Bedside diagnosis of outpatient childhood urinary tract infection using three-media dipslide culture test. Pediatr Nephrol. 2009;24(8):1539-1543. 27. Ferry S et al. Uricult and Sensicult dipslides for diagnosis of bacteriuria and prediction of drug resistance in primary health care. Scand J Prim Health Care. 1989;7:123-8. 28. Yagupsky P, Rider M, Peled N. Clinical evaluation of a novel chromogenic agar dipslide for diagnosis of urinary tract infections. Eur J Clin Microbiol Infect Dis. 2000;19(9):694-8. 29. Rosenberg M et al. Initial testing of a novel urine culture device. J Clin Microbiol. 1992;30(10):2686-91. 30. Millar L et al. Rapid enzymatic urine screening test to detect bacteriuria in pregnancy. Obstet Gynecol. 2000 Apr;95(4):601-4. 31. Hagay Z et al. Uriscreen, a rapid enzymatic urine screening test: useful predictor of significant bacteriuria in pregnancy. Obstet Gynecol. 1996;87(3):410-3. 32. Teppa RJ, Roberts JM. The uriscreen test to detect significant asymptomatic bacteriuria during pregnancy. J Soc Gynecol Investig. 2005;12(1):50-3. 33. Macías AE et al. Catalase test (Uriscreen) in the detection of bacteriuria-candiduria in hospitalized adults with Foley catheter. Rev Invest Clin. 2002;54(6):521-6. 34. Palmer LS, Richards I, Kaplan WE. Clinical evaluation of a rapid diagnostic screen (URISCREEN) for bacteriuria in children. J Urol. 1997;157(2):654-7. 35. Waisman Y, Zerem E, Amir L, Mimouni M. The validity of the uriscreen test for early detection of urinary tract infection in children. Pediatrics. 1999 Oct;104(4):e41. 36. Schot MJ et al. Analytical performance, agreement and user-friendliness of six point-of-care testing urine analysers for urinary tract infection in general practice. BMJ Open. 2015;5(5):e006857. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2014-006857.
38. National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. Urinary tract infection in under 16s: diagnosis and management (NICE clinical guideline [CG54]). National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence site. Published 2013. Available at: http://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg54. Accessed Jan 20, 2016.
40. Cho S et al. Smartphone-based, sensitive micro PAD detection of urinary tract infection and gonorrhea. Biosens Bioelectron. 2015;74:601-611. 41. Mach KE et al. Biosensor diagnosis of urinary tract infections: a path to better treatment?. Trends Pharmacol Sci. 2011;32(6):330-336. 42. Fredborg M. et al. Real-time optical antimicrobial susceptibility testing. J Clin Microbiol. 2013;51(7):2047-53. doi: 10.1128/JCM.00440-13. 43. Kadlec MW et al. A Cell Phone-Based Microphotometric System for Rapid Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing. J Lab Autom. 2013;19(3):258-266. 44. Kjölvmark C, Påhlman LI, Åkesson P, Linder A. Heparin-binding protein: a diagnostic biomarker of urinary tract infection in adults. Open Forum Infect Dis. 2014;1(1):ofu004. doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofu004. Abbreviations: CFU/ml: Colony-Forming Units per millilitre IDSA: Infectious Diseases Society of America MRSA: Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus NHS: The National Health Service NICE: The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence NPV: Negative Predictive Value POC: Point-of-care PPV: Positive Predictive Value SIGN: Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network UTI: Urinary tract infection Which one is the most cost effective method of screening urine?The most cost-effective device used to screen urine is a paper or plastic dipstick. This microchemistry system has been available for many years and allows qualitative and semi-quantitative analysis within one minute by simple but careful observation.
What are the diagnostic tests for the urinary system?Imaging tests such as pyelogram, cystography, CT scan or ultrasound of the kidney, prostate/rectal sonogram and renal angiogram provide visibility into the urinary tract to look for blockages, tumors and other abnormalities. Cystometry and urine flow tests help doctors assess whether urinary function is normal.
What is the most important lab test for diagnosing issues with the urinary tract?A urinalysis is a test of your urine. It's used to detect and manage a wide range of disorders, such as urinary tract infections, kidney disease and diabetes.
What are the methods of imaging of urinary tract?Urinary tract imaging techniques include conventional radiology, or x rays; ultrasound; magnetic reso- nance imaging (MRI); computer- ized tomography (CT) scans; and radionuclide scans.
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