AIMS To assess whether false positive results found when the first stage Chlamydiazyme test is performed on urinary sediment could be reduced by using the more specific second stage blocking assay. METHODS Sediment from 173 urine samples from patients with suspected urinary tract infection caused by Gram negative bacteria and 23 control urine samples were tested using the Chlamydiazyme assay ...

We studied the urinary RBC morphology in 87 consecutive cases of significant hematuria by 3 commonly used methods: (a) light microscopy of the unstained urinary sediment; (b) phase contrast microscopy of the unstained urinary sediment; and (c) Wright's staining of the urinary sediment, in order to compare the sensitivity of these methods in detecting dysmorphic RBCs and thus predicting the site...

This special issue of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine is based on the lectures delivered at the international symposium “Urinary sediment: still an important diagnostic tool”, which took place in Rome on the 4th and 5th of December 2014, thanks to the full support of “A. Menarini Diagnostics”. The symposium was the realization of a project which I conceived years ago on the convictio...

Testing for common mutations in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), including the A3243G MELAS (mitochondrial encephalomyopathy, lactic acidosis, and strokelike episodes) mutation, is routinely done in DNA isolated from blood. Since the blood level of the A3243G mutation may be low in probands and even lower in asymptomatic or oligosymptomatic maternal relatives, we assessed the proportion of A3243G mut...

Angiogenesis, the development and recruitment of new blood vessels, plays an important role in tumour growth and metastasis. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is an important stimulator of angiogenesis. Circulating and urinary VEGF levels have been suggested as clinically useful predictors of tumour behaviour, and investigations into these associations are ongoing. Despite recent intere...

BACKGROUND Podocyte proteins are involved in the pathogenesis of glomerular kidney disease (GKD). However, there is little information on messenger RNA (mRNA) expression patterns of B7-1 and NPHS1 in urinary sediment of patients with GKD. The objective of this study was to analyse the gene expression of B7-1 in urinary sediment and correlate it with the expression of podocyte-specific genes in ...

This paper presents a strategy for segmenting urinary sediment based on wavelet, morphology and combination method. Firstly, the wavelet transforms and morphology are used to get rid of the effect of the defocusing and get the subimages that include the particles. Then based on the characteristics of the subimages, edge detection and adaptive thresholding are employed adaptively. Finally, a sim...

BACKGROUND There is no reliable clinical test to predict the reversibility of acute-on-chronic renal failure. We study whether urinary biomarkers could be used as a noninvasive prognostic marker in patients with acute-on-chronic renal failure. METHODS We studied 39 adult patients with pre-existing chronic renal impairment presenting to us with acute-on-chronic renal failure. Urinary neutrophi...