The approach to urinary tract infection remains a difficult and sometimes controversial issue. One area in particular is accurate diagnosis. In a recent article it was suggested utilizing the "enhanced" urinalysis, not as a replacement to culture but as a potential sensitive predictor to allow therapy to be given while awaiting culture results. Another difficult area is the issue of radiologic ...

Urinary tract infection (UTI) is a common problem in day to day practice with prevalence probably second only to respiratory tract infections. UTI remains a major cause of hospitalization and morbidity and accounts for a majority of causes of unexplained fever in children below 3 years of age (l). Even though urine is readily accessible for examination, diagnosis and management of UTI may not a...

Diagnosis • History. Diagnosis is made primarily by history. In women with dysuria and frequency, in the absence of vaginitis, the diagnosis is UTI 80% of the time [evidence: C*]. • Phone triage. In women with prior history of uncomplicated UTI's, consider phone triage [C*]. • Urinalysis. Urinalysis for detection of pyuria by dipstick or microscope has a sensitivity of 8090% and a specificity o...