Patients with suspected UTIs are categorized into 3 clinical phenotypes based on current guidelines: no UTI, asymptomatic bacteriuria (ASB), or UTI. However, all patients may not fit neatly into these groups. Our objective was to characterize clinical presentations of patients who receive urine tests using the “continuum of UTI” approach.
This was a retrospective cohort study of a random sample of adult noncatheterized inpatient and emergency department encounters with paired urinalysis and urine cultures from 5 hospitals in 3 states between January 01, 2017, and December 31, 2019. Trained abstractors collected clinical (eg, symptom) and demographic data. A focus group discussion with multidisciplinary experts was conducted to define the continuum of UTI, a 5-level classification scheme that includes 2 new categories: lower urinary tract symptoms/other urologic symptoms and bacteriuria of unclear significance. The newly defined continuum of UTI categories were compared to the current UTI classification scheme.
Of 220,531 encounters, 3392 randomly selected encounters were reviewed. Based on the current classification scheme, 32.1% (n = 704) had ASB and 53% (n = 1614) did not have a UTI. When applying the continuum of UTI categories, 68% of patients (n = 478) with ASB were reclassified as bacteriuria of unclear significance and 29% of patients (n = 467) with “no UTI” were reclassified to lower urinary tract symptoms/other urologic symptoms.
Our data suggest the need to reframe our conceptual model of UTI vs ASB to reflect the full spectrum of clinical presentations, acknowledge the diagnostic uncertainty faced by frontline clinicians, and promote a nuanced approach to diagnosis and management of UTIs.
