Pyuria in Children with Diabetic Ketoacidosis.

Acute kidney injury occurs frequently during pediatric diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). We reviewed urinalyses from 561 children with DKA; pyuria was detected in 19% overall and in 40% of children with more comprehensive urine testing (≥3 urinalyses) during DKA.

What Urinary Colony Count Indicates a Urinary Tract Infection in Children?

Post-hoc analysis of the Randomized Intervention for Children with Vesicoureteral Reflux study suggests that, in concordance with European guidelines, using bacteriologic criterion of ≥10 000 colony forming units/mL of a single organism does not decrease diagnostic specificity of an urinary tract infection in children aged 2 months to 6 years in a properly collected urine if symptoms/fever and pyuria are present. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT00405704.

Asymptomatic bacteriuria and inflammatory response to urinary tract infection of elderly ambulatory women in nursing homes.

BACKGROUND: Bacteriuria > or = 10(5) CFU/ml is evidence of urinary tract infection in the absence of associated signs or symptoms. The presence of pyuria with asymptomatic bacteriuria established the response of elderly women against microorganisms capable of causing invasiveness or tissue injury of the urinary tract. METHODS: The association between bacteriuria and pyuria was determined in 178 elderly, ambulatory women without symptoms of urinary tract infection in seven nursing homes. Urine culture results were subsequently analyzed in conjunction with absolute leukocyte count in urine. In this cross-sectional study, asymptomatic bacteriuria in elderly women was classified with and without pyuria. RESULTS: The prevalence of asymptomatic bacteriuria was found in 44 (24.7%) elderly women. The presence of pyuria had a sensitivity of 63.6% for bacteriuria and a specificity of 91%. The positive predictive value for the presence of pyuria predicting those with bacteriuria was 70%, and the negative predictive value for the absence of pyuria predicting those without bacteriuria was 88.4%. Escherichia coli was the most common organism isolated in 81.8% of the women. CONCLUSIONS: Bacteriuria > or 10(5) CFU/ml associated with pyuria was detected in 77% of elderly women with asymptomatic urinary tract infections. Bacteriuria of < 10(5) CFU/ml with pyuria proves less sensitive as an indicator of urinary tract infection. Elderly women with pyuria but without bacteriuria should be studied for other causes of urinary tract inflammation.

Pyuria and bacteriuria in urine specimens obtained by catheter from young children with fever.

Results of urinalysis and culture of 2181 urine specimens obtained by catheter from febrile children aged less than 24 months were analyzed to determine the following: (1) an optimal cutoff point in considering a bacterial colony count clinically "significant," (2) the accuracy of leukocyte esterase and nitrite tests in identification of pyuria and bacteriuria, and (3) the utility of pyuria (defined as > or = 10 leukocytes/mm3) in the discrimination of urinary tract infection from asymptomatic bacteriuria. Among 110 urine cultures with > or = 10,000 colony-forming units per milliliter, 92 (84%) had > or = 100,000 CFU/ml, 10 (9%) had 50,000 to 99,000 CFU/CFU/ml and 8 (7%) had 10,000 to 49,000 CFU/ml. Urine specimens with 1000 to 49,000 CFU/ml were more likely than specimens with > or = 50,000 CFU/ml to yield Gram-positive or mixed organisms (36/60 vs 7/109; p < 0.001). A count of < 10 leukocytes/mm3 was almost invariably associated with a sterile culture; a count of > or = 10 leukocytes/mm3 was found in 93 of 102 patients with > or = 50,000 CFU/ml. The dipstick leukocyte esterase test had sensitivities of 52.9% and 66.7% in detecting > or = 10 leukocytes/mm3 and > or = 20 leukocytes/mm3, respectively. The dipstick nitrite test had a sensitivity of 31.4% in detecting bacteriuria (> or = 50,000 CFU/ml). Acute pyelonephritis was diagnosed by a renal scan with dimercaptosuccinic acid labeled with technetium 99m in 50 (77%) of 65 patients with > or = 10 leukocytes/mm3 but in none of five patients with < 10 leukocytes/mm3 (p < 0.01). The findings in these five patients were consistent with colonization of the urinary tract rather than infection. For urine specimens obtained by catheter, we believe that urinary tract infection is best defined by both a leukocyte count > or 10/mm3 and a CFU count > or = 50,000/ml. This definition almost always discriminates among true urinary tract infection, bacteriuria resulting from contamination of the urine specimen, and asymptomatic bacteriuria.