• Mehmet Çağlar Çakıcı, Özgür Kazan, Muhammet Çiçek, Ayberk İplikçi, Asıf Yıldırım, and Gökhan Atış.
• Department of Urology, Istanbul Medeniyet University Goztepe Training and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey.
• Int. J. Clin. Pract. 2021 Jul 1; 75 (7): e14212.

AimsTo investigate the effect of the ideal period (Δ-day), which is a period between the sterile urine culture and initiation of flexible ureteroscopy (f-URS), on postoperative urinary tract infections (UTI) in our tertiary referral centre.MethodsAfter obtaining the approval of the local ethics committee, retrospective data were collected for all f-URS procedures performed between January 2017 and March 2019. Patients that developed UTI were matched in 1:1 proportion with patients that did not develop UTI based on their demographic and stone characteristics. The group of patients with postoperative UTI was compared with the control group.ResultsA total of 916 f-URS cases that had all required data were analysed. Sixty-eight patients with postoperative UTI were determined and a total of 136 patients were included in the study after match-pair. We found that if the Δ-day is longer than 2 weeks, the possibility of postoperative urinary infection rates increases with statistical significance (P = .006). According to our subgroup analysis, postoperative UTI was more common if the Δ-day >14 days. ROC curve analysis provided a 14.5-day period as a cut-off value of Δ-day for postoperative UTI.ConclusionsThe present study is the first to examine the impact of the Δ-day for f-URS on postoperative UTIs. In brief, prolonging the Δ-day, especially if Δ-day >14 days, leads to an increase in the rates of postoperative UTI. We conclude that it is preferred to either perform the f-URS in the early period after the urine culture analysis or doing the urine culture analysis shortly before the surgery.© 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

7 keywords...

hide…