New Urinary Tract Infection Detection Tool Performs well in Primary Care Setting

A urinary tract infection (UTI) detection tool meant to be used in an emergency room population was modified by researchers to be usable in a primary care setting. The main modification was removing the requirements for microscopy since results are often not available in primary care.

Urinary Tract Infection Diagnosis

Urinary tract infections (UTI) are commonly diagnosed and treated in primary care. The gold standard for diagnosing a UTI is a urine culture. However, waiting for culture results delays treatment, so doctors often prescribe antibiotics while awaiting those results.

Researchers found that the removal of microscopy features did not severely compromise the performance of the UTI detection algorithm in emergency department patients. Additionally, the algorithm performed well in the primary care sample.

Source-Eurekalert