Performing a urinalysis

1
Performing a urinalysis
2
What is urine?

• Urine is wastes and excess water removed from the
  blood and excreted by the kidneys.
• The answers to questions 2-11 can be found in the
  lab introduction.

3
Physical characteristics of urine

• Volume
• 0.6 to 2.5 L/day
• Low values gt dehydration

4

• Clarity
• -transparent or clear
• -abnormal is cloudy gt microorganisms, blood,
  sperm, crystals or mucus

5
Physical continued

• Color
• -ranges from pale yellow to amber
• -darker if voided less often
• -changes color with diet, meds, and physical
  activity

6
Physical continued

• Smell
• -has its own characteristic smell
• -infections may cause a bad odor
• -diabetes or starvation may cause a fruity odor

7
Physical continues

• Specific gravity
• -checks the amount of substances in the urine
• -normal range is 1.005 1.030 g/mL
• -very high results indicate not drinking enough
  fluid, loss of fluid, substances in the urine
  (sugar, protein)
• -very low results indicate drinking too much,
  severe kidney disease, use of diuretics

8
Chemical characteristics

• 95 water
• 5 solutes such as urea, electrolytes and uric
  acid
• -solutes that should not be in the urine are
• protein gt diabetes, kidney failure,
• infection, lupus,
  poison, leukemia
• glucose gt diabetes, liver damage, brain injury
• ketones gt diabetes, starvation, alcoholism

9

• pH
• -normal range for urine is 4.6 8.0
• -high pH gt vomiting, kidney disease, infection,
  asthma
• -low pH gt diabetes, dehydration, starvation,
  alcoholism

10
Microscopic studies
Microorganisms are absent in a normal urine
sample.

• Red blood cells gt infection, kidney damage,
  glomerulonephritis

11
Microscopic studies continued

• White blood cells gt infection, inflammation,
  bladder tumor

bacteria
wbc
12
Microscopic studies continued

• Yeast gt Yeast Infection

13
Microscopic studies continued

• Bacteria gt Bacterial infection

14
Microscopic studies continued

• Crystals gt kidney stones, infection