A new technique to discover urine infections in 45 minutes has been approved
A new analysis system can detect the presence of bacteria in the urine and carry out the antimicrobial sensitivity tests in just forty-five minutes.
There are over four hundred million cases of urine infections every year, and they particularly affect women. These infections extend to the bladder, the urethra and the kidneys and they happen when certain skin or rectum bacteria enter the urethra and infect the urine tract.
How are urinary tract infections classified?
In order to identify them, a culture and a sensitivity test is required to discover the type of antibiotic that will be most effective against the bacteria, a procedure which, up until now, usually took an average of four days.
However, a new analysis system called Sysmex PA-100 AST can detect the presence of bacteria in the urine and carry out the antimicrobial sensitivity tests in just forty-five minutes.
The research has been carried out in the Hospital de Sant Pau with the collaboration of the company Sysmex, and the results show that the test reaches a sensitivity of 84% and a specificity of 99.4% for the bacteria species that cause uncomplicated infections.