Limited usefulness of urinary dipsticks to screen out catheter-associated bacteriuria in ICU patients

The use of urinary dipsticks to screen out sterile urine specimens was investigated in catheterized ICU patients. During a three-month period, each urine sample quantitatively cultured was concurrently tested at the bedside with a dipstick. A total of 102 urine samples taken from 43 patients were analysed. Thirty-eight of them showed bacterial or yeast growths (incidence rate, 37%). The negative predictive value of the leukocyte esterase pad and/or the nitrate test pad to screen out sterile urine samples was 81%, indicating that dipsticks cannot routinely be proposed to select catheterized ICU patients for quantitative culture of urine.