Paraplegia
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Positive urine cultures are common and often asymptomatic in the male spinal injured patient performing self clean intermittent catheterisation. It is possible that the positive urine cultures result from contamination from the colonised urethra at the time of catheterisation. This contamination could result in true infection of the bladder urine or yield false positive results, explaining the frequently seen asymptomatic cases. ⋯ However, quantitative culture revealed colony counts that approached a 10-fold increase following catheterisation in one patient. This suggests that catheterisation is at least partially responsible for ascending infection in this group of patients. Catheter specimens were found to be a good representation of the bladder urine, with an 87.5% correlation.