URINARY TRACT INFECTIONS (UTIs) are a common outpatient infection, especially in women aged over 65 years. At least 1 in 2 women will have a UTI in her lifetime. In all, 20% to 40% of these women will have 1 recurrence, and, of those, up to 50% will go on to have multiple recurrences.1,2 The gold-standard diagnostic tool for UTI is urine culture, a technology that relies upon the ability of the causative organism(s) to grow in artificial conditions. The problem with culture is that many organisms that cause symptomatic urinary tract infections will not grow on standard culture medium, or will grow “mixed urogenital flora,” making identification of a causative pathogen difficult or impossible.
