[Microbiological diagnosis in the clinical laboratory].

In general, microbiological diagnostic procedures in the practitioner's office are limited to direct detection of group A streptococci in throat swabs in patients with pharyngitis and to semiquantitative urine culture with Uricult or Urotube test kits in patients in whom urinary tract infection is suspected. Negative direct tests with throat swabs should be confirmed by culture in the clinical microbiology laboratory, as several test kits have only moderate sensitivity in detecting group-A beta-hemolytic streptococci and do not detect other groups of beta-hemolytic streptococci. The results of semiquantitative urine cultures should always be interpreted together with clinical data. Quality control procedures are necessary for the accurate performance of these tests, and an external quality assessment program will probably be introduced in the near future.