Assessing the potential of urinary dipstick testing to guide empirical antibiotic treatment for urinary tract infections in patients admitted to the emergency department: a cross-sectional study

2026/01/01 by Eugene Yevgeni Feigin, Roy Cohen, Moshe Giladi · 1 voice
Medicine · #Antimicrobial Resistance in Staphylococcus #Pediatric Urology and Nephrology Studies #Urinary Tract Infections Management

paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/ash.2026.10335

openalex publication_date 2026/01/01 · openalex created_date 2026/04/08 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21

Abstract

This study of 4,724 bacteriuria cases evaluated if urinary nitrites could guide empiric therapy. Nitrites lacked sensitivity and specificity, failing to accurately distinguish gram-positive from gram-negative pathogens. Because gram-positive infections correlate with age and comorbidities, clinicians should rely on patient characteristics rather than dipstick results to guide empiric antibiotic coverage.

Citations

• International Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Treatment of Acute Uncomplicated Cystitis and Pyelonephritis in Women: A 2010 Update by the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the European Society for Microbiology and Infectious Diseases

Discussions

• A large cohort of UTI pts found gram + infections (mainly E. faecalis) occur in older, sicker patients. Urine nitrite results poorly predicted pathogen type. Nitrites lacked sensitivity and specificit [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]

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