Detection of urinary tract cancer in urinalysis specimens in an outpatient population

This investigation was undertaken to determine the effectiveness of detecting urinary tract cancer in an outpatient population utilizing the urinalysis sediment. A total of 9870 urinalysis wet preparations was examined on patients from various clinics serviced by the clinical microscopy laboratories. One hundred forty-eight of these examinations were considered to be abnormal (1.5%). Follow-up urine specimens from the patients with atypical wet preparations examined in the cytology laboratory by the permanent procedure were obtained from 100 patients (68% return rate). Histopathologic follow-up studies revealed 12 of the original abnormal wet preparations had histologic evidence of cancer. Such a high pick up rate (1.2 per 1000) suggests that this examination for cancer is a valuable additional part of urinalysis.