[Etiology of hematuria from the urologic viewpoint]

The importance of hematuria in urology was analyzed with special consideration of microhematuria. It is especially emphasized that in microhematuria as in marcrohematuria a thorough urological diagnosis must follow in order to detect the source of bleeding with certainty and thus to be able to decide on further therapy. In most of the cases, it was not particularly difficult to localize the source of bleeding in the macrohematuria, in contrast to microhematuria in which a precise source of bleeding can be established only in less than 10%. Microhematuria gives rise to particular problems in cancer prevention in men and women; these not uncommonly lead to "overdiagnosis". The most serious cause of microhematuria are tumors of the kidney and the urinary tract. Patients are often "treated" by the general doctor without certain exclusion of the presence of a tumor. This leads to a delay in diagnosis in painless hematurias. It is known from the literature that despite massive hematuria on average three months pass until the patient visits an urologist. The urologist therefore often diagnoses advanced urogenital tumors which can no longer be successfully treated.