Diagnosis of bacteriuria by detection of volatile organic compounds in urine using an automated headspace analyzer with multiple conducting polymer sensors

The Osmetech Microbial Analyzer (OMA) is an automated headspace analyzer fi tted with a novel detector system consisting of an array of polymer sensors , each of which responds to different volatile organic compounds. The syste m can be used for screening clinical urine specimens for significant bacter iuria by sampling urine headspace and subjecting the output of the multiple -detector response to principal component analysis. The OMA readily disting uished artificially infected urine samples from sterile controls. The OMA w as when used to analyze 534 unselected clinical urine specimens, of which 2 1.5% had significant bacteriuria (containing > 10(5) CFU of bacteria/ml), T he sensitivity and specificity of the OMA compared with conventional cultur e were 83.5 and 87.6%, respectively. The OMA is a promising automated syste m for the rapid routine screening of urine specimens, and further clinical trials are in progress.