Lactobacilli do not cause frequency and dysuria syndrome.

Mid-stream specimens (MSU) of urine were collected from 142 healthy women (pregnant and non-pregnant) and cultured for lactobacilli and other fastidious bacteria. The latter either require CO2 or are obligate anaerobes. Lactobacilli were present in counts of 10(4)/ml or more in 34.8% of the women, and in counts of 10(5)/ml or more in 20.2%. Besides lactobacilli, which were the bacteria most frequently isolated, anaerobic gram-positive cocci (peptococci and peptostreptococci) were often found. This flora is typical of that of the lower vagina, and none of these women had either symptoms of urinary infection of pyuria. Therefore, the bacteria isolated were commensals or contaminants. Cultures of MSUs taken from 26 women with symptoms of dysuria and/or frequency, but without significant numbers of conventional pathogens such as Escherichia coli, contained commensals and contaminants of the same variety and in similar numbers. Urine samples from 50% of these patients contained at least 10(4) lactobacilli/ml and 27% had 10(5) or more/ml. Lactobacilli were absent from the suprapubic urine specimens cultured from a further 44 women. There was no significant difference between the isolation rate of lactobacilli in urine cultures from healthy women and the rate in women with dysuria and frequency.