019 - Measurement of urine leukocytes by a second generation flow cytometer; application in the diagnosis of acute urinary tract infections in adult patients

F. Manoni, S. Valverde , F. Antico, A. Giacomini, M. Salvadego, G. Gessoni Background. A large number of screening tests for rapid diagnosis of Urinary Tract Infection UTI is used in the Clinical Laboratory but each of them is questionable and an ideal screening test for diagnosis of UTI is not available at present. Aim of this study is to evaluate the feasibility of a screening for rapid diagnosis of UTI by using a second generation flow cytometer. The authors evaluated the analytical performance of the Sysmex UF-100 cytometer versus the UTI diagnosis made on the basis of laboratory and clinical data. Materials and Methods. We considered 2010 consecutive subjects, aged between 18 and 78, 870 males and 1140 females, whose recently collected urine samples were submitted to our Laboratory for microbiological examination. The majority (90.2% ) of the samples were voided urine specimens collected by using the midstream technique. The samples were collected in sterile containers and a 12 mL aliquot was transferred into test tubes and analyzed within one hour. Each sample was submitted to microbiological evaluation (culture + RAA), dipstick tests, UF-100 examination and microscopic observation. These results were considered together with the clinical data and patients characteristics to obtain a final diagnosis of UTI. The analytical performance of the Laboratory tests was obtained by using this diagnosis as a standard. Results. At first the authors evaluated the analytical performance of the quantitative detection of pyuria by using the UF-100 cytometer to assess the cut-off value. ...