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When Should We Use Urine Cultures?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Walter E. Stamm
Walter E. Stamm*
Affiliation:
Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, Harborview Medical Center, Seattle, Washington
*
Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, Harborview Medical Center, 325 Ninth Avenue, Seattle, WA 98104
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Extract

Medicine and infectious disease textbooks have traditionally advised physicians to obtain urine cultures routinely before the initiation of therapy for presumed urinary tract infection. In practice, however, many physicians treat patients empirically, without doing a culture, and a recent cost-effectiveness analysis has supported this approach, at least in selected patients. What, then, are trie pros and cons of diagnostic urine cultures, and in which situations does current evidence favor their use?

Type
Special Sections
Information
Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology , Volume 7 , Issue 8 , August 1986 , pp. 431 - 433
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America 1986

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References

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