Urine culture collected from gel-based diapers: developing a novel experimental laboratory method.

BACKGROUND Urinary tract infection diagnosis is based on urine culture, taken from a midstream collection. Obtaining samples in this manner is difficult in elderly patients suffering from incontinence and in infants. OBJECTIVES (1) Develop a method for urine collection using gel-based diapers and (2) compare culture results from gel-based diapers with those of the same urine, examined by accepted methods. METHODS Urine was collected and cultured by standard bacteriologic techniques at the microbiology laboratory of Soroka Medical Center, Beer-Sheva, Israel. Gel-based diapers were manually dampened with the same urine samples, and samples from diapers were cultured 0 to 3 hours after dampening. RESULTS Comparison showed good correlation between direct urine cultures and cultures obtained from gel based diapers (R = 1.000). Total sensitivity was 100% and specificity 97%. CONCLUSIONS (1) Urine can be cultured from gel-based diapers and (2) a larger sample of in vivo trials will be needed to make this technique clinically applicable in an outpatient setting.