[Bacterial adhesiveness and recurrent urinary infections in children]

Bacterial adhesivity test to epithelial cells in vitro was studied, in order to investigate whether urinary, and buccal cells, from children prone to recurrent urinary tract infections (UTI) are better adhered to by uropathogen Escherichia coli (E. coli), as compared to cells from control children, non-prone to recurrent UTI. Cells were withdrawn from 75 children, divided into 3 groups: with recurrent UTI without uropathy, with recurrent UTI and uropathy, and controls, without recurrent UTI and without uropathy. Values obtained showed that most of the children, prone or not to recurrent UTI, have cells allowing good adhesivity of the 2 uropathogen E. coli used and that there is no significant difference among these results and no relation with the 3 described groups. Bacterial adhesivity appears dependent on individual genetic variations of cell donors, presumably related to membrane receptors. Studies on in vitro bacterial adhesivity do not seem to be able to explain pathogenesis of recurrent UTI.