THE COST-EFFECTIVENESS OF COMBINED RAPID TESTS (MULTISTIX) IN SCREENING FOR URINARY-TRACT INFECTIONS

Urinary tract infections (UTI) are relatively common in the urology ou tpatient's department and the renal transplant unit. Clinical diagnosi s is imprecise and laboratory methods take time and are costly. Combin ed rapid tests (Multistix) were used to screen 400 consecutive mid str eam specimens of urine: 200 from urology outpatients and 200 from rena l transplant patients. All specimens were also tested in the laborator y. The negative predictive value for excluding UTI was excellent (> 98 %) but positive predictive value for confirming presence of UTI was on ly 50%. However, with this simple screening method, up to 75% of urine s can be excluded from laboratory analysis. Since there is a 20 fold d ifference in cost between dipstix and laboratory testing, the potentia l savings from this simple screening test is considerable.