When we are worried about a baby having a possible UTI, the standard of care has been to get a catheterized or suprapubic specimen but not to trust the result of culturing a clean-catch urine specimen—at least not until Labrosse et al. (peds.2016-0573) tried out a new non-invasive bladder stimulation technique in infants less than six months of age.
The results of their trial of this technique make for interesting reading as they report on a prospective cohort study involving infants less than 6 months requiring a urine sample in the Emergency Department for a possible infection. Each stimulated clean-catch specimen was followed with a catheterized specimen from the same infant to compare results in terms of successful specimens obtained and number of contaminants, using the less invasive clean-catch method compared to the more invasive usual catheterization.
The results may surprise you and have you wanting to try this technique in your patients. If you do, please let us know how successful you were with it by sharing a response via this blog, posting a comment on our website in response to this study, or sharing your comments on our Facebook or Twitter page. While the sample size is not large in this study, the results are impressive and hopefully will lead to others trying this technique so its reliability and validity can be made even stronger.
