An indigenously developed nitrite kit to aid in the diagnosis of urinary tract infection.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the utility of an indigenously developed nitrite kit for the rapid diagnosis of urinary tract infection (UTI) METHODS: 1018 urine specimens were collected from all cases where there was clinical suspicion of UTI. Samples were cultured as per standard microbiological protocol. Presence of nitrites was indicated by the development of purple color on addition of color developing solution and compared with the set of graded positive and negative controls also provided in the Kit.


RESULTS
The results of the nitrite kit were compared with the semi-quantitative urine culture as the gold standard. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive and negative predictive values were 47%, 87%, 31% and 93%, respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
Nitrite kit as a screening test can decrease the work load in the clinical bacteriology laboratory. More importantly in a field set up that is devoid of culture facilities, it can be used to correctly predict the absence of UTI.
Sood
S
S
Department of Microbiology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi 110 029, India.
Upadhyaya
P
P
Kapil
A
A
Lodha
R
R
Jain
Y
Y
Bagga
A
A
D000328:Adult; D001424:Bacterial Infections / Q000175:diagnosis*; D002648:Child; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D009573:Nitrites / Q000652:urine*; D015588:Observer Variation; D011933:Reagent Kits, Diagnostic / Q000191:economics; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014552:Urinary Tract Infections / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000382:microbiology
D009573:Nitrites; D011933:Reagent Kits, Diagnostic