A study on asymptomatic bacteriuria in pregnancy: prevalence, etiology and comparison of screening methods

Asymptomatic bacteriuria is defined as the presence of more than 100000 colonies of a single bacterial species per milliliter of urine, cultured from midstream sample in the absence of declared symptoms. 1 Asymptomatic bacteriuria is common in women and increases in prevalence with age and/or sexual activity. 2 The prevalence of asymptomatic bacteriuria in pregnancy varies form 4-7% (range 2-11%) and is similar to that observed in non-pregnant women. 3 Although pregnancy does not predispose a woman to the acquisition of asymptomatic bacteriuria, it does predispose her to acute upper urinary tract infection or pyelonephritis 4 . Pyelonephritis develops in 20-40% of pregnant women with untreated asymptomatic bacteriuria. Approximately, ABSTRACT