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Positive urine nitrite test: an accurate predictor of absence of pure enterococcal bacteriuria
J Holloway1, N Joshi, T O'Bryan
1Department of Medicine, Hershey Medical Center, Pennsylvania State University, 17033, USA.
Background:
The aim of this study was to determine the potential ability of the urine nitrite test (NT) to predict the class of organism causing urinary tract infection.
Methods:
We retrospectively reviewed the records of all adult patients with a positive urine culture over a 6-month period. The infecting microorganisms and the urine NT results were recorded.
Results:
A total of 729 positive cultures met inclusion criteria. Twenty-one (11%) of the 190 gram-positive organisms and 199 (46%) of the 429 gram-negative organisms yielded a positive NT. Only 5.3% of samples with pure growth of enterococcus yielded a positive NT. The predictive value that a sample yielding a positive NT would show pure growth of enterococcus was low at 2.3%.
Conclusion:
A positive NT is highly predictive of the absence of pure enterococcal bacteriuria.