CRITICAL ANALYSIS Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

CRITICAL ANALYSIS - Essay Example Although, microscopic urine sediment analysis is generally regarded as the gold standard for urinalysis, its flaws are also acknowledged. Besides the problem with interobserver variability and imprecision, this method is also labour intensive and very time consuming (Langlois et al., 1999). While the culture method is the preferred method of detecting and quantifying bacteria in urine (Graham and Galloway, 2001), non-culture tests include Gram staining of uncentrifuged urine specimens, Gram staining of centrifuged specimens, or direct observation of bacteria in urine specimens, Nitrite test, leukocyte esterase tests etc. Suprapubic aspiration is generally considered the best method to avoid contamination of specimen, however, this method is rarely used because it is invasive and thus uncomfortable and dangerous (Wilson and Loretta, 2004). Semi-automatic equipments like the Yellow IRIS, followed by the UA-1000 and UA-2000 (Sysmex Corporation, Kobe, Japan) were early attempts at automation of urine analysis. With the Yellow IRIS, precision and sensitivity is reported to be considerably better as compared to visual microscopy, especially at the lower concentration range. The Yellow IRIS device after removing mucus strands from native urine, adds a dye and the stained urine is passed through an optical pathway. A strobe lamp interrupts the motion of the fluid and the particles in it are captured on a colour video-camera. The resulting images of the particles are differentiated with respect to their lengthwise dimensions and then presented for validation by a trained analyst. UA-1000 and UA-2000 follow the same principle, but provide better image resolution compared with the Yellow IRIS because the particles are captured by a colour CCD camera Several studies evaluating and/or validating these automated urine examination methods have been carried out and published. From its findings, a few authors concluded that though the UF-100 might not be seen as a