cystitis, as well as other types of urinary infection, is an extremely common disease, especially among women. Estimated 50% to 60% women they will suffer from it at some point in their lives, so it is important to properly diagnose it. The first screening can be done with urine strips. However, now that such cases antibiotic resistant bacteria, it is also desirable to know which particular bacterium is causing the infection and, above all, which antibiotics are most effective against it. For this, agar cultures are usually carried out, which give very reliable results, although they take too long to obtain. After all, it is a technique that 140 years.
Today, by urine alone, a person can determine pregnant in just a few minutes. Okay, it’s not an infection. But at the same time, we can know if we have COVID-19 with a nose sample. Thanks to PCR, we can detect many pathogens, both bacterial and viral, with great efficiency in a few hours. Why, then, is this technique still being used to diagnose urinary infections?
This question has just been answered in Talk two professors from the University of Reading, Alexander Edwards and Sarah Noods. In their article, they clarify the features of urination, for which, oddly enough, this old technique is the most suitable. Although, of course, other options are still being sought, as effective as they are fast. Time is goldalso when we try to diagnose cystitis.
How is a urinary tract infection diagnosed?
For the diagnosis of cystitis The urine sample should be cultured on agar plates.. To do this, take those typical round plastic plates called Petri dishesand covered with a layer of agar.
This is a nutrient medium that contains everything that bacteria need to grow and obtain energy. It precipitates in a liquid state, although it later solidifies until it passes jelly-like consistency. These agar plates are the support on which the urine sample is placed. If it contains bacteria, then once the plate is placed at the correct temperature, they will multiply to form colonieswhich can be quantified to give a rough idea of the size of the infection. Shape, color, size and even smell colonies can be used to indicate which types of bacteria are present.
Now we have to keep in mind that there are more than just microbes in a urine sample. Actually it shouldn’t be. Under normal conditions, there are other substances, such as urea and salts that together with different figures pH, they can change any dimension that is not made by the agar culture.
The Importance of Finding Resistant Bacteria
Resistant bacteria are becoming more common in urinary infections. For this reason, when sowing is carried out, it is usually also carried out antibiogram. It consists in adding to the agar different antibiotics and check what happens to the bacterial colonies. If they happen baldin which the antibiotic killed the microbes, we will assume that bacteria susceptible to this antibiotic. However, if they remain unchanged, we will know that have developed resistance against him. This way we can have an idea of which treatment is best.
What is the problem? What does it all take. You must first wait for the bacteria to multiply and then the antibiotic will take effect and this will eventually lead to several days.
Anyone who has had a urine infection knows annoying What are they. So every day more without treatment can be torture. Not to mention that an untreated infection can become more complicated, such as spreading to kidneys. To prevent this from happening, treatment is sometimes prescribed before results are obtained. If you’re lucky and the right antibiotic has been used, no change is needed. However, if the bacterium is resistant to the chosen one, it will be necessary to change treatment. This increases the possibility of resistance and, in addition, it is much more expensive. But at the moment this is what it is, because there is no better technique.
Alternatives to diagnosing urinary infection
Other ways to diagnose urinary infections are currently being explored. Edwards and Needs speak of two in particular. On the one hand, they can be used. digital cameras which are found on a microscopic scale or in dilute urine if there are growing bacteria. The result would be obtained much faster than with agar culture. In the future, this mechanism may even be associated with smartphone. In addition, after a few hours it was possible to check the effect of antibiotics. The problem is that this is still under study.
On the other hand, some laboratories are already implementing another mechanism based on mass spectrometry. This is a method that helps determine the composition of a sample by measuring the mass-to-charge ratio of the ions produced when it is heated to vaporization. Databases are used in which the values of various bacteria are found and thus the cause of the infection can be established. The problem is that it is not useful for measuring antibiotic resistance. And also that mass spectrometers are devices expensive and cumbersometherefore, samples must be sent to laboratories that have them.
But, in addition to these two methods, the diagnosis of urinary infection is also being studied a lot. using artificial intelligence. Neural networks are trained to associate specific symptoms and rapid lab tests with cystitis. For example, in 2018 it was introduced capable of linking the number of urinations, the level of red blood cells in the urine and pain above the pubis diagnosed with a urinary tract infection. This would help to avoid prescribing antibiotics when they should not be given, as this is sometimes done in these cases as well. However, it still would not be useful to detect resistance to them.
Thus, the technique used today 140 years doesn’t mean it’s bad. In the end, if during all this time he has not been replaced, then there will be a reason.
Source: Hiper Textual
