It took a significantly shorter period of time after obtaining urine cultures to start the assigned antibiotic therapy based on limited versus a full microbiological investigation (mean +/- SD: 1.2 +/- 1.4 days versus 3.3 +/- 2.5 days).
Among those who had initially received pre-investigation antibiotic therapy prior to obtaining results of urine cultures, 85% of patients who had a limited microbiological investigation required no change in antibiotic therapy compared to 33% in the full microbiological investigation group, (p=0.006).
Clinical response was not significantly different between those who received antibiotic therapy guided by limited versus full microbiological investigation (85% versus 95%, p=0.40).
Urine cultures obtained at the end of therapy grew yeast in 3/33 (9%) patients who were treated based on a limited microbiological investigation versus 3/19 (16%) patients who received susceptibility based antibiotic therapy, (p=0.66).
Recurrence of symptomatic UTI due to one or more of the originally infecting bacterial species within a month of discontinuing the assigned antibiotic therapy was equally observed in the two groups of patients (8/33 = 24% versus 4/19 = 21%, respectively, p=1.0).