Assessment of Rapid Dipstick Test for Diagnosis of Urinary Tract Infection in Asymptomatic Pregnant Female

Background:Bacteriuria during pregnancy has been known to cause many complications like low birth weight and premature delivery.

Objective: This study was done to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of rapid dipstick test to predict urinary tract infection in pregnancy against the gold standard urine culture.

Material&Methods: A total of 200 mid stream urine samples were collected from asymptomatic pregnant females. These specimens were cultured in blood agar and MacConkey's agar by using the standard loop technique and incubated aerobically at 37°C overnight. The criterion for clinically significant bacteriuria was either a pure or predominant culture of >10⁵ colony forming units (CFU)/ml. All the specimens were also examined microscopically for pyuria and bacteriuria.

Results: The prevalence of asymptomatic bacteriuria in pregnancy was 15 % in our study. The sensitivity and the specificity for leucocyte esterase were 85.7% and 74.4% and for nitrites, they were 64.2% and 72%.

Conclusion: The study revealed that use of either leukocyte esterase or nitrite for screening of asymptomatic bacteriuria in pregnancy was associated with many false positive and negative results when compared with the gold standard urine culture method. By using their combination maximum negative predictive value of .98 was achieved.