Method for rapid diagnostic of urinary tract infections

A method of analyzing a urine specimen wherein the rapid and simultaneous counting of both viable bacteria and white blood cells comprises:

• (a) quantitative concentration of said specimen by filtering a known quantity of said specimen through a filter with pore size small enough to retain bacteria and white blood cells;
• (b) simultaneous labeling of the elements retained on said filter, with a fluorescent viability marker of bacteria, said marker tagging and accumulating in both bacteria and white blood cells, under the same conditions and leading to different fluorescent elements;
• (c) counting and classifying fluorescent elements on the whole filter by means of an appropriate scanning cytometer, such as to obtain on one part the number of fluorescent bacteria and on the other part, the number of fluorescent leukocytes, on the basis of their size;
• and
• (d) calculating the concentration in bacteria and in leukocytes present in the initial urine sample by dividing the obtained counts by the volume of urine filtered, to express them in terms of concentration in the original sample.

A method for the rapid and simultaneous counting of both viable bacteria and leukocytes in a urine specimen, comprising the steps of:

• (a) simultaneous labeling of said bacteria and said white blood cells present in said urine specimen, with a fluorescent viability marker of bacteria selected from the group consisting of products made fluorescent by an intracellular enzyme, said marker tagging and accumulating in both bacteria and white blood cells, under the same conditions and leading to different fluorescent elements;
• (b) automatically counting all the fluorescent elements by photoelectric detection of the fluorescent marker;
• and
• (c) simultaneously classifying said fluorescent elements in fluorescent viable bacteria and in fluorescent white blood cells to obtain the total number of bacteria and the total number of white blood cells, on the basis of their size.