Sensitivity of Extended Cultures in Diagnosing Urinary Tract Infections

Overactive Bladder Clinical Trial

Official title: Are Extended Urine Cultures More Sensitive Than Standard Urine Cultures in Diagnosing Urinary Tract Infections in Patients With Urgency and Frequency?

Status Terminated

Clinical Trial Summary

There is some evidence to suggest standard urine cultures may not be adequate in identifying patients with low grade urinary tract infections. Therefore, there are patients with symptoms of frequency and urgency, being misdiagnosed with overactive bladder due to negative urine cultures. If this is true, could extended cultures be used to identify the false negative patients?

Clinical Trial Description

In 2014, Hilt, Evann et al published a study called "Urine is not sterile," in which it was found via PCR and extended urine cultures, there is a microbiome that exists within the urinary bladder. In this study, 92% of the bacteria failed to be identified by a standard urine culture but 80% were identified with extended urine cultures. In further explorations of the significance of this microbiome, Pearce, Meghan et al. found that the female bladder consists of increased abundance of bacteria in patients with UUI; including Gardnerella and Lactobacilus gasseri. Then in 2015, a study by Thomas-White, Krystal et al. found that patients with urge urinary incontinence (UUI) who responded to treatment with Solifenacin had fewer and less diverse communities of bacteria when evaluated by PCR and extended urine cultures.

The clinical significance of the bacteria identified is not well understood. However, these studies show that the presence of bacteria is being missed by standard cultures. Dune et al. found that of patients with UTI symptoms, 27.5% were standard culture negative but extended quantitative urine culture positive. This demonstrates that practitioners may be overlooking urinary tract infections in patients with frequency and urgency. Therefore, if bacteria within the urine can be detected with extended cultures, can this technique be used to improve detection and treatment of urinary infections in patients with symptoms of frequency and urgency?

The hypotheses states that extended urine cultures are more sensitive in the identification of urinary tract infections in patients with symptoms of urgency and frequency. The secondary hypothesis is that treatment of the uropathogen identified on extended urine cultures will improve patient symptoms. ;

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Infection
• Overactive Bladder
• Overactive Detrusor
• Urgency-Frequency Syndrome
• Urinary Bladder, Overactive
• Urinary Tract Infections
• UTI

• NCT number: NCT03080389
• Study type: Observational
• Source: The Cleveland Clinic
• Status: Terminated
• Start date: July 1, 2017
• Completion date: August 1, 2018