Microbiology Program, Department of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, BRAC University, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Front Cell Infect Microbiol. 2023 Aug 1;13:1210161. doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2023.1210161. eCollection 2023.
"Expanded quantitative urine culture (EQUC)" is an enhanced culture protocol for the detection of viable microbes in urine specimens. Using a large volume of urine and different sets of cultural conditions, EQUC is able to uncover a wide range of bacteria and fungi (yeasts) that were otherwise undetected by the standard urinary culture. In addition to common urinary pathogens, EQUC has been shown to detect emerging and new pathogens, and commensal microbiota. Although the usefulness of EQUC protocol in clinical set up has not yet been fully established, recent studies have demonstrated that EQUC can provide valuable information regarding symptom resolution, treatment responses and diagnosis of major urinary disorders including urinary tract infections, urinary incontinence and other lower urinary tract symptoms. EQUC may also help in evaluating the utility of beneficial microbiota as biotherapeutics. This narrative minireview describes the current research findings regarding the clinical utility of EQUC in characterizing the role of urinary microbiome and uropathogens in health and disease. The literature which are written in English, available on "PubMed" and contain any of the terms- "expanded quantitative urine culture", "enhanced quantitative urine culture" and "EQUC" in the abstracts were used as the source articles to prepare this minireview.
"扩展定量尿液培养(EQUC)" 是一种增强的尿液标本微生物检测培养方案。通过使用大量尿液和不同的培养条件,EQUC 能够发现许多原本无法通过标准尿液培养检测到的细菌和真菌(酵母)。除了常见的尿路病原体外,EQUC 还已被证明可以检测到新兴和新的病原体以及共生菌群。尽管 EQUC 方案在临床环境中的实用性尚未得到充分证实,但最近的研究表明,EQUC 可以提供有关症状缓解、治疗反应和主要泌尿道疾病(包括尿路感染、尿失禁和其他下尿路症状)诊断的有价值信息。EQUC 还可能有助于评估有益微生物群落作为生物治疗剂的效用。本综述描述了关于 EQUC 在描述尿液微生物组和尿路病原体在健康和疾病中的作用的临床实用性的最新研究结果。使用的源文章是在 "PubMed" 上发表的、以英文撰写且摘要中包含 "扩展定量尿液培养"、"增强定量尿液培养" 和 "EQUC" 中任何一个术语的文献。