Pilot study showed that poor feeding, especially with leucocyturia, increased the odds of non-febrile urinary tract infections in children who were not toilet trained.

AIM: This study assessed the prevalence of wrongly diagnosed non-febrile urinary tract infections in patients who had not been toilet trained and presented with poor feeding and, or, failure to thrive. The diagnostic value of these signs in predicting non-febrile UTIs was also explored.

METHODS: We focused on 59 outpatients (56.7% male) with these criteria, who had positive urine cultures and were referred to our Italian University hospital from January 2017 to January 2019. None were on antibiotics and all underwent urine cultures by bladder catheterisation. Wrongly diagnosed non-febrile UTIs were defined by sterile urine cultures. The predictive value was evaluated using logistic regression.

RESULTS: The mean age was 8.5 ± 5.7 months and 72.9% had wrongly diagnosed non-febrile UTIs. Poor feeding was significantly higher among the 16 patients with true non-febrile UTIs (P = .04). It was significantly predictive of non-febrile UTIs (odds ratio 4.1, 95% confidence interval 1.1-16.6), especially when leucocyturia was present (odds ratio 9.7, 95% confidence interval 2.3-40.7).

CONCLUSION: Wrongly diagnosed non-febrile UTIs were high in children with poor feeding and, or, failure to thrive. Only poor feeding and, in particular, the combination of poor feeding and leucocyturia, significantly increased the odds of non-febrile UTI.