Physical, chemical and morphological urine examination: Recommendations for the postanalytical phase from the Interdisciplinary Urinalysis Group (GIAU)

© 2020 Biomedia. All rights reserved. This document of the Interdisciplinary Urinalysis Group (GIAU) is aimed to provide recommendations on how to improve and standardize the postanalytical approach to physical, chemical and morphological urine examination (ECMU). The main tool to emphasize the value of the ECMU is the development of a laboratory report suitable for the clinical needs. As a consequence, these recommendations are mainly related to the structure and content of the report. They include: the layout, the parameters to be included, the measurement units, the reference values, the inclusion of interpretative comments. Really, an important section of the report is dedicated to the interpretative comments: these are a real add-on value and are tailored on the type of laboratory performing the analysis (general or with a specific section dedicated to the urine examination). The different levels of the laboratory competence determine the category of possible comments. The basic one concerns comments that evaluate the non-conformity of the sample (i.e. presence of urethral, seminal, vaginal, faecal contamination; too concentrated/too diluted samples). The second level of comments is dedicated mainly to the reporting of the discrepancies between the biochemical analysis and the microscopy examination (i.e. presence of haemoglobin and no erythrocyte detection; presence of leucocyte esterase and no leucocyte detection). The third level requires a specific competence of the pathologist together with a strict collaboration with the clinic; these comments are elaborated on the basis of a specific clinical request. The detection of the “decoy cells” in immunosuppressed solid organ transplant recipients, that are typical of a poliomavirus infection, is a good example of the third level of interpretative comments.