Dipstick analysis for screening of paediatric urine.

The examination of. urine specimens constitutes a major portion of the work of a clinical microbiology laboratory. Although the prevalence of urinary tract infection varies for different patient populations, most urine specimens are culture negative. In this laboratory only 12% of paediatric urines show evidence of urinary tract infection. The availability of a rapid reliable screening test for the presence of bacteriuria would have many advantages. Among these would be the more timely provision of information to the clinician and a more efficient cost effective method of processing urine specimens in the laboratory. Several studies have been made on the use of reagent strips as a rapid method to indicate the presence of urinary tract infection and renal disease.' 14 Most of these methods, however, have used the detection of leucocyte esterase, or nitrite, or a combination of both, and have been performed on unselected patient populations. To date no studies have been carried out specifically on paediatric patients. We report a rapid strip test screening method using the detection of nitrite, blood, and protein as indicators of bacteriuria in paediatric patients.