Clinical Features of Negative Hematuria in Urolithiasis Patients in the Emergency Department

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: To determine the clinical features of urolithiasis-patients; specifically negative hematuriapatients (NHP) versus positive hematuria patients (PHP) in an emergency department (ED). METHODS: Patients with urolithiasis who had visited an ED over the past two years were retrospectively analyzed. Only patients analyzed through both urinalysis and computed tomography were included (1005 patients). NHP was present in 125(12.4%) of these patients. The clinical features of NHP and PHP were assessed in regard to several factors sex, age, onset to ED visit time, associated symptoms, costovertebral angle tenderness (CVAT), stone size, stone location, length of stay in the ED, repeated drug rate, admission rate, and revisit rate within 72 hours. RESULTS: There were no significant differences in sex, age, onset to ED visit time, associated symptom, CVAT, and stone size between NHP and PHP. However, in NHP there was a slight dominance in renal and ureterovesical junction (UVJ) according to stone location. Compared with PHP, NHP increased the length of stay in the ED (150.0+/-52.3 min vs. 132.7+/-48.6 min; p=0.001), repeated drug rate (80% vs. 69.4%; p=0.015) and admission rate (12.8% vs. 6.4%; p=0.015). There was no significant difference in revisit rate within 72 hours between NHP and PHP (8.3% vs. 4.7%; p=0.161). CONCLUSION: Compared with the conventional PHP, NHP increased the length of stay in an ED, increased the repeated drug rate, and was associated with a high admission rate in an ED setting.