Urinary tract infection is one of the most common bacterial infections in childhood, affecting up to 8 % of girls and 2 % of boys before the age of 11 years. The presentation of UTI varies with age; in infancy, symptoms are often generic including fever, lethargy or irritability, vomiting, diarrhea, poor feeding, failure to thrive, septicemia and febrile convulsion. Several textbooks mention prolonged neonatal jaundice as one symptom of UTI. Jaundice is very common in newborn babies occurring in approximately 60 and 80 % of pre-term babies. It is more common in breast-fed babies of whom 10 % will still have some jaundice at the age of 1 month. In term, babies who are older than 2 weeks, it is called persistent or prolonged neonatal jaundice.
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More recent studies have investigated children who have had hyperbilirubinemia without any other symptoms and they have come to conflicting results. We have found six recent studies on asymptomatic children with prolonged jaundice who have evaluated any bacteriuria in that way. Four studies from different parts of the world, Iran, Turkey and the USA, including a total of 484 neonates showed bacteriuria in between 6 and 18 % of the infants [1, 5, 7, 9]. A study in 154 UK infants could only confirm significant bacteriuria in one child. A further UK study found no pathology of any kind in 197 infants with prolonged jaundice. In summary, our study confirms previous UK data since only 1 out of 319 of the infants with prolonged unconjugated jaundice was shown to have a significant UTI. It might thus be inappropriate to request urine culture in all infants with prolonged jaundice although recent NICE guidelines recommend this practice. Authors' contributions Dr. Chowdhury did take part in planning the study, did the actual study, analyzed the data, wrote the first draft of the manuscript and approved of the final draft; Dr. Kisat planned the study, saw the
More recent studies have investigated children who have had hyperbilirubinemia without any other symptoms and they have come to conflicting results. We have found six recent studies on asymptomatic children with prolonged jaundice who have evaluated any bacteriuria in that way. Four studies from different parts of the world, Iran, Turkey and the USA, including a total of 484 neonates showed bacteriuria in between 6 and 18 % of the infants [1, 5, 7, 9]. A study in 154 UK infants could only confirm significant bacteriuria in one child. A further UK study found no pathology of any kind in 197 infants with prolonged jaundice. In summary, our study confirms previous UK data since only 1 out of 319 of the infants with prolonged unconjugated jaundice was shown to have a significant UTI. It might thus be inappropriate to request urine culture in all infants with prolonged jaundice although recent NICE guidelines recommend this practice. Authors' contributions Dr. Chowdhury did take part in planning the study, did the actual study, analyzed the data, wrote the first draft of the manuscript and approved of the final draft; Dr. Kisat planned the study, saw the