Significance of routine urinalysis in the diagnosis of urinary tract infection

Objective To evaluate the significance of routine urinalysis in the diagnosis of urinary tract infection.Methods A total of 586 patients undergoing routine urinalysis and with mid-stream urine culturing as positive and 500 healthy subjects were enrolled. The areas under receiver operating characteristic( ROC) curves( AUC) of white blood cell( WBC),leukocyte esterase( LEU) and nitrate( NIT) were analyzed. The sensitivities,specificities,positive predictive values and negative predictive values of WBC,LEU and NIT serial and parallel detections were calculated.Results The AUC of WBC,LEU and NIT were 0. 852,0. 822 and 0. 706. The sensitivities of WBC,LEU and NIT serial and parallel detections were 82. 6%,83. 6%,43. 8%,41. 4% and 87. 2%,the specificities were 74. 0%,73. 0%,96. 8%,98. 0% and 67. 2%,the positive predictive values were 78. 9%,78. 4%,94. 1%,96. 0% and75. 7%,and the negative predictive values were 78. 4%,79. 2%,59. 5%,58. 8% and 81. 8%. Conclusions Routine urinalysis is a rapid and simple test with good sensitivity and specificity,and is applicable for the early diagnosis and fast screening of urinary tract infection,especially for male patients.