BACKGROUND: Urinary tract infection (UTI) is among the most common infections in medical center. Urinalysis tests detect significantly more gram-negative infections than those due to gram-positive bacteria because the urinary nitrite test does not detect the presence of gram-positive pathogens in many cases. OBJECTIVES: Explore the microbiology and frequency of UTI by coccus in symptomatic adult patients, comparing them with urinary nitrite results, in order to delineate the epidemiological profile of these patients. MATERIAL AND METHOD: Retrospective analysis was conducted from April 2004 through March 2005 at Health Center, Maringa, Brazil. RESULTS: Urine specimens from 3,426 patients were collected and examined. A total of 448 (13.1%) samples had positive culture results. There were 388 (86.6%) strains of gram-negative rods and 60 (13.4%) of gram-positive cocci. A statistical analysis of patients' comorbidities revealed a significant difference in the proportion of patients with hypertension (31.3% with positive nitrite vs. 4.5% with negative nitrite, p < 0.05). The proportion of patients with positive nitrite who had fever was larger than patients with negative nitrite (75% vs. 43.2% respectively, p < 0.05). Nitrate-reducing Staphylococcus aureus showed high level resistance to ciprofloxacin (66.7%) in comparison with nitrite-negative isolates (100% sensitive). CONCLUSIONS: This preliminary study had shown that evaluation of clinical signs and symptoms, together with urinary nitrite result, could help physician to take important decisions.
Urinary tract infection; Dipsticks; Nitrites; Gram-positive cocci
