Screening for urinary tract infection with the Mastascan Elite.
Mastascan Elite urine screen (MUS) is compared to a conventional method to determine significant growth of urinary pathogens and determine identification and susceptibility. MUS can detect at least 10(3) colony-forming units (cfu)/mL of commonly isolated pathogens and in this study identified 161 true positive bacterial growths (15.2%), 840 true negatives (79.2%), 54 false positives (5.1%) and six false negatives (0.6%). Overall performance in determining susceptibility to nine antibiotics directly from urine was 10.5% true resistance, 82.4% true susceptibility, 5.3% false resistance and 1.8% false susceptibility. Using limited tests, the system correctly identified 80.7% of isolates, 11.8% could not be identified at all and 7.5% were incorrectly identified. In this study, MUS provided 94.7% of results in 24 h, compared to 78.4% produced by the conventional method. Thus, MUS proved an effective and efficient method for processing urines, saving significant time, materials and human resources.
Cocking
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Microbiology Department, F Floor, Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Glossop Road, Sheffield S10 2JF, UK. ian@cocking60.fsnet.co.uk
Winstanley
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D001419:Bacteria / Q000302:isolation & purification; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods*; D008826:Microbial Sensitivity Tests / Q000379:methods; D016482:Urinalysis / Q000379:methods*; D014552:Urinary Tract Infections / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000382:microbiology