OBJECTIVE

To define 'chronic' urinary tract infection (UTI) by reviewing current published research that employs this term.

METHODS

We systematically searched Medline and Embase for studies covering all aspects of human UTI. For comparison, current urological and infectious disease guidelines were also reviewed.

RESULTS

The electronic search yielded a total of 2175 articles, of which 154 were eventually included for data extraction. Of these, six studies presented a definition of chronic UTI within the text. The definitions were highly incongruent among studies and often identical to the current definition of 'recurrent' UTI.

CONCLUSION

Chronic UTI is an undefined term, which has nevertheless been increasingly used in the past 15 years. Chronic UTI does not represent a distinct clinical or microbiological condition that justifies its use as medical diagnosis.