Comparison of Polymerase Chain Reaction and Urine Culture in the Evaluation of Patients with Complex Urinary Tract Infections.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-13-2024

Publication Title

Biology (Basel)

Abstract

To compare organism identification using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and urine culture (UC) in patients with complex urinary tract infections (cUTIs), we reviewed the results of 3395 patients seen during 2022 with cUTI who underwent concomitant PCR and UC testing. We compared the overall positivity rates as well as the ability of each test to identify fastidious organisms (FOs) and the presence of polymicrobial infections (PMOs) and conducted concordance analysis between the tests. PCR detected 36.4% more organisms than UC and was 20 and nearly 36 times more likely to detect PMOs and FOs, respectively. PCR identified 90.6% of organisms found in UC, whereas UC identified 40.7% of organisms found in PCR testing. We found that 62.4% of organisms found in PCR were not found in urine culture, while UC found 9.4% of organisms not identified in polymerase chain reaction. All these differences were statistically significant (

Volume

13

Issue

4

First Page

257

DOI

10.3390/biology13040257

ISSN

2079-7737

PubMed ID

38666869

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