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Brad H. Rovin, MD
Professor of Medicine and Pathology Director, Nephrology Division
A Practical Approach to the Work-Up of Hematuria
Hematuria: Definitions
- Macroscopic
- Microscopic
- Asymptomatic: Not associated with pain (dysuria,
loin pain, renal colic), renal dysfunction, hypertension, proteinuria, or macroscopic hematuria.
- Asymptomatic Microscopic Hematuria (AMH) is
common and presents the most significant diagnostic and therapeutic challenges.
- Everyone excretes RBCs in their urine. A
traditional approach to quantifying hematuria is by counting the total number of RBCs in a timed (12 hour) urine sample.
- “Normals” excreted a mean of 66,000 RBCs with a
range of 0-425,000. In contrast, patients with glomerular disease excreted 40-120 million RBCs.
- Abnormal Hematuria: Generally taken to mean
more than 500,000 RBCs/12 hours.
- But this type of measurement is not clinically
practical.
- Abnormal hematuria defined as above is roughly
equivalent to 2 RBCs/HPF.
Hematuria: Definitions
Hematuria: Scope of the Problem
- Definitive Diagnosis: Made in only 50-80% of cases
- This leads to costly work-ups and often involves
repeated, invasive urologic and radiologic studies
- Using >3 RBC/hpf on 3 occasions over 2-3 weeks:
- Prevalence
Children: 2-6% Adults: 4%
- Men: 2-5%
- Women 5-11%
- 39% may have single episode
Potential kidney donors: 12%