COP Webinar – Understanding asymptomatic bacteriuria Vs UTI in the older person

[Carrie Spinks]

Hi Everyone,

Yesterday we kicked off the 2026 COP webinar series – a great turn out for the topic – Understanding asymptomatic bacteriuria Vs UTI in the older person – presented by Brigitte Brodie, IPC Consultant.

One question required further exporation and Brigitte has kindly provided the response as below:

Qu: You mentioned from the slide that 2 or more bacteria is likely contaminated but what if the MSU comes back as both having high counts indicating infection?

Ans: Whenever a specimen has polymicrobial (ie more than one organism) grown, contamination needs to be considered. In this setting, we would recommend reassessing the resident for symptoms / signs of a UTI, and recollecting a specimen – sometimes to collect a specimen with best technique may require consideration of an in/out catheter (especially if a resident has issues collecting a clean catch mid stream urine)

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