Investigation of urinary tract infection in a group of pregnant women.

Urinary tract infection is a common disease and afflicts women more frequently than men. Recent surveys of defined populations in Wales and Jamaica revealed an incidence of significant bacteriuria of 4 per cent in women and 0.5 per cent in men (Kass, 1965). In pregnancy women are at higher risk and about 6 per cent have been found to have asymptomatic bacteriuria (Kass, 1960; Turner, 1961; Kincaird-Smith, 1965 and Little, 1966). Since chronic pylonephritis is an important cause of renal failure the early detection and adequate treatment of acute pyelonephritis may prevent chronic renal disease in later life. Evidence of active pyelonephritis has been found in 10 to 20 per cent of autopsies of patients in several hospital series (Jackson et al 1955; Kass, 1967) but in only 20 to 30 per cent of these was the diagnosis made during life. The majority of urinary tract infections were therefore undiagnosed. A definite diagnosis of urinary tract infection can be difficult. Some patients with the infection are asymptomatic. In others who have symptoms of the disease the identification of the causative organism has been difficult when reliance was placed on the usual methods of microscopic evidence of pyuria and bacteriological culture. The following is an account of how this difficulty can be overcome by using the method of quantitative bacterial culture. The other object was to identify the common organisms responsible for urinary tract infection among a group of pregnant women in Singapore.