Pathology
-
Urine is the most frequently received clinical specimen for bacterial culture. To determine whether dipstick or microscopy results reliably predicted the presence or absence of a reportable urinary pathogen we performed dipstick testing and phase contrast microscopy on unspun urine from 500 specimens. We also investigated the relationship between the presence of squamous epithelial cells (SECs) and mixed growth on culture. ⋯ SEC contamination does not reliably predict cultures with mixed growth, urine specimens with negative dipstick results and microscopy rarely contain a reportable urinary pathogen, and screening algorithms are warranted and justified.