The Urinary Microbiome of Older Adult With Suspected Urinary Tract Infection

Older adults suffer from a high rate of asymptomatic bacteriuria, in which urinalysis may appear positive in the absence of active infection, but does not benefit from antibiotics. We sought to determine if features of the urinary microbiome in this population could discriminate between asymptomatic bacteriuria and urinary tract infection. We collected samples from 250 older adult Emergency Department patients who had microscopic urinalysis ordered as part of their routine clinical care that showed features suggestive of UTI. These samples were subjected to metagenomic sequencing.