Comparison of Polymerase Chain Reaction and Urine Culture in the Evaluation of Patients with Complex Urinary Tract Infections

Abstract

To compare organism identification using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and urine culture (UC) in patients with complex urinary tract infections (cUTIs), we reviewed the results of 3395 patients seen during 2022 with cUTI who underwent concomitant PCR and UC testing. We compared the overall positivity rates as well as the ability of each test to identify fastidious organisms (FOs) and the presence of polymicrobial infections (PMOs) and conducted concordance analysis between the tests. PCR detected 36.4% more organisms than UC and was 20 and nearly 36 times more likely to detect PMOs and FOs, respectively. PCR identified 90.6% of organisms found in UC, whereas UC identified 40.7% of organisms found in PCR testing. We found that 62.4% of organisms found in PCR were not found in urine culture, while UC found 9.4% of organisms not identified in polymerase chain reaction. All these differences were statistically significant (p < 0.05). Although we found that PCR was superior to UC in overall pathogen detection, and detection of both PMOs and FOs, both identified potentially pathogenic organisms not found in the corresponding test. Our data strongly suggest that the evaluation of patients with cUTI is best accomplished using PCR in conjunction with UC.