Symptomatic bacterial urinary tract infections in men: limitations of quantitative urine cultures

Occasionally, physicians have discarded the diagnosis of acute symptomatic bacterial urinary tract infection when the urine coutn failed to approach or exceed 100,000 organisms per ml. Previous studies done in women have established the fact that sole reliance cannot be placed on this value to exclude the diagnosis of symptomatic bacterial urinary tract infection. A retrospective analysis of the charts of male patients, with an unequivocal diagnosis of symptomatic bacterial urinary tract infection, demonstrates the limitations of the urine colony count as a diagnostic test in men.