New UTI testing provides faster, better results
Story originally posted on February 9, 2006
The vast majority of Interstitial Cystitis patients are familiar with urinary tract (UTI) or bladder infections. Some IC patients have a long (or even life time) history of frequent, reoccurring infections. Many IC patients feel that these infections themselves may have eventually been the trigger that caused their IC (possibly damaging the bladder lining that in turn made them more prone to IC), and even after a diagnosis of IC a significant amount of ICers continue to get UTIs. Proving, sadly, that one bladder condition (it's worth noting that IC is not a form of UTI, to the best of medical knowledge at this point in time, and has not been shown to be a bacterially based ailment) does not make you immune to others. If anything IC may make our bladders more prone to developing UTIs because the GAG layer (the inner bladder lining) is usually inflamed and/or damaged due to things like pinpoint bleeding and/or Hunter's ulcers.
A lot of people (both male and female, though women suffer from more UTIs than men) will develop one or more bladder infections in their lifetime. In fact UTIs are the most common type of North American urological disorder, as well as being the most common type of bacterial infection that affects any organ in the body. Others such as people who may in fact have IC and not an UTI are also used to the sorts of urine testing procedures that doctors order when a UTI is suspected. Though typically reliable these tests can be slow, and take days for the results to come back to your doctor. Many see the current types of UTI testing as outdated and in much need of a new replacement, so it comes as excellent news to UTI suffers, IC patients and doctors alike that a new and novel approach to UTI testing is being developed.
Researchers from the UCLA school of Medicine in conjunction with the GeneFluidics corporation have come up with a way to use biosensor technology in order to not only diagnosis an UTI, but determine if it is a “gram-negative” bacteria. This type of bacteria was seen in about 98% of UTI cases that the researchers looked at. What makes this fact so groundbreaking is that it is the first time ever that a species-specific type of bacteria has been found in human fluid samples using biosensor technology, in this case something called a microfabricated electrochemical sensor array. These findings were made public recently in the February 2006 issue of the Journal of Clinical Microbiology.
Where as most detailed urine culture studies take at least two days, this test provides results in only 45 minutes. Traditionally a urine sample is cultured in a lab for 2 or more days, yet in the meantime both the patient and the doctor are unsure if the person does in fact have a UTI (or for the sake of example, possibly have IC – which would not show up in a urine culture). This often leads to the unnecessary prescription of antibiotics or prescription of the wrong type of antibiotic drugs, because the doctor isn't certain what type of bacteria to treat. The new biosensor approach takes both the waiting and guess work right of the equation and delivers reliable results in under an hour. These results tell the doctor and the patient, whether or not it is a UTI and what sort of bacteria it is (if it's an UTI).
But how does this technology work? Well it's not quite sci-fi, but it does represent the forefront of emerging medical technology. According to an article from the UCLA medical news, “individual sensors on GeneFluidics' 16-sensor chips were coated with UCLA-designed species-specific genetic probes. Clinical urine samples were directly applied to the chips and the electrochemical signal subsequently measured by GeneFluidics' multi-channel reader instrument. The urinary tract infection pathogens were identified by examining which signals on the sensor chip were elevated. The entire experiment from sample collection to result read-out took only 45 minutes. The potential for rapid bacterial detection was discovered in the laboratory of Dr. Edward McCabe, chair of pediatrics at the Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA and an adviser to GeneFluidics. McCabe's group demonstrated that probes could bind to species-specific bacterial sequences within minutes, rather than hours. These exciting results were translated to the biosensor protocol, leading to the development of the biosensor for rapid identification of bacteria in urine from patients with urinary tract infections.”
Work continues at the UCLA and VA Medical Center, where researchers hope to find even better means of detecting UTIs. At this point in time the research group estimates that their quick and accurate testing may be available within two to three years. Should this prove to be true, and assuming that health care providers opt to implement this rapid-fire type of testing, the results could be astonishing. Quicker testing means faster treatment and UTI detection. If the test comes back negative then doctors could proceed faster to the next steps in determining what the underlying causes(s) of the patients urinary symptoms are. It would also mean that IC patients, who often surfer daily from the ravishing affects of Interstitial Cystitis would also be able to tell quicker if a spike in their bladder symptoms was an IC flare-up a UTI, something that is all to common for many with this baffling urinary condition (IC). For now we can only hold our breath and hope that this new diagnostic testing comes to see the light of day in doctors' offices everywhere, very soon.
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