Bacterial Cultures for Cystitis

Excerpt

To the Editor: In their recent review on the diagnosis and treatment of urinary tract infections in women, Johnson and Stamm (1) have raised some difficult, if not self-contradictory, issues. Previous studies by Stamm and colleagues (2) of acutely dysuric young women, most of whom were seen at the University of Washington Student Health Center, established the fact that (in carefully collected urine specimens) Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus saprophyticus, and Proteus mirabilis in the order of magnitude of 10² to 10⁴ cfu/mL are clinically significant. This observation has led Johnson and Stamm (1) to recommend that clinicians encourage their clinical laboratory