Observational studyClinical chemistry and laboratory medicine2025
Quality indicators for urine sample contamination: can squamous epithelial cells and bacteria count be used to identify properly collected samples?
Observational study in Clinical chemistry and laboratory medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Rapid screening of urinary tract infections: quantitative flow cytometry versus dipstick testing in a hospital cohort.Infection · 2026Article
- When Culture Results Don't Tell the Whole Story: A Practical Review of Antibiotics Pitfalls for Clinical Decision-Making.Infectious diseases and therapy · 2026Review
- Diagnostic Accuracy of Urine Flow Cytometry (UF) in Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) Detection and Management: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Multivariable Urine Flow Cytometry-Based Screening for Prediction of Urine Culture Positivity.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- The urine examination: a modern technological test with a very ancient history.Advances in laboratory medicine · 2026Review
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesTo evaluate urinalysis parameters useful for identifying mixed cultures in urine culture using an automated urinary particle analyzer to assess quality indicators (QIs) for urine sample contamination.
methodsA retrospective observational cross-sectional study was conducted with 2,527 urine samples from patients of a quaternary hospital in Brazil. Urine samples were processed simultaneously in Sysmex UF-5000 flow cytometry analyzer (urinalysis) and MALDI-TOF (culture).
resultsFor all samples, a cutoff of 123.8 bacteria/µL was established to discriminate culture-negative specimens. ROC curve indicated the following cutoffs for females and males, respectively: 193.65 and 23.55 bacteria/µL, and 21.35 and 5.05 squamous epithelial cells (SEC)/µL, with the latter two related to scenarios of sample contamination/colonization through mixed cultures. Performing univariate logistic regression, we found a 2.78 (CI95 %: 2.12-3.65) times higher chance of probable mixed culture when SEC values were above the cutoffs for each sex, and 6.91(CI95 %: 4.56-10.47) times for bacteria. For multivariate logistic regression, the OR values were 1.62 (CI95 %: 1.21-2.15) and 5.82 (CI95 %: 3.77-8.98), respectively.
conclusionsThe fluorescent flow cytometry analyzers could efficiently identify urinary bacteria counts associated with contamination/colonization scenarios using the cutoffs of 21.35 SEC/µL for women and 5.05 SEC/µL for men. The cutoffs for bacteria/µL (193.65 for females and 23.55 for males) indicated that the presence of bacteria in male samples may be more associated with urinary tract infections (UTIs), while in female samples, it may be associated with either UTIs or contamination/colonization scenarios. This makes the analyzer a helpful tool as QI of sample contamination in urine cultures.
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