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Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Presence of sperms in female urine sediment,is it reportable?

I work in a clinical laboratory in " urine analysis " department.I would like to know if I find any sperm in female's urine,will it be important to report? and will it be a sighn of any disorder or just it shows an previouse intercourse?! will it help doctor to recognize anything?
please help me.
Answer:
I write a lot of laboratory procedures. We report everything seen on a microscopic UA; however, the presence of spermatozoa in the urine of a consenting adult female is considered to be normal. Since the laboratory has no knowledge of the patient's circumstances (i.e., rape, incest, mental or physical incapacity), it is up to the ordering physician to evaluate the significance of all findings when treating his patient. Since the reporting of spermatozoa is part of the urinalysis order/test, it would be inappropriate to withold any information regarding their presence. A laboratory should not refrain from reporting something just because it is considered to be a normal finding.

You should refer to your laboratory's microscopic urinalysis procedure to see what it says and follow it. Sometimes the hospital medical staff will dictate what will be reported on a urinalysis and their wishes will be incorporated into the procedure.
It should be reported, however all it indicates as you have already said, is that the female patient has had intercourse in the last 24 hours...
I also work in a lab and have talked to other lab techs about this. Our policy, and theirs, is to never report sperm in a woman's urine. There's only one way it could get there and it's not pathologically significant.
There is no need to report that unless until you are specifically asked to do so. Since you are not working in a forensic lab this observation is not significant, even though you can make out the patient had intercourse in last 48 hours.
No need to report
I am surprised at previous answers. I think it is wrong to omit what you see. You are a technician, a very important position in medical diagnosis, but you are not a guardian of public or private mores.

By the same token, you are morally (and perhaps legally) obligated to keep your mouth shut about your findings. Blabbing your findings to other techs in the lab, or to other unconcerned parties is simply wrong.
We ignore it, but it does get listed as present on the lab sheet.
I work in an Emergency Room and seen a few cases where the presence of sperm in a patients urine led us to file CPS or APS reports. When you recieve a specimen into the lab, you get no medical history with it. In the cases I have seen, the patients were both mentally incapacitated. Therefor, not choosing to have intercourse. In my opinion, this result should always be reported. It is up to the physician to decide what is relevant and what isn't. If it is irrelevant, it will be ignored by the physician. In some cases, I know, it has given a voice to people who weren't able to speak for and protect themselves. I know it's a rarity......but it happens.

6 comments:

  1. Might be she had had an intercourse at night. And some sperms might have remained inside. It some times happens.
    LVN School Modesto

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  2. I'm a Chief Medical Technologist in a Hospital based clinical lab, I always remind my co-medtechs to report anything that is part of the test. In the case on urinalysis, reporting sperms is not really part of the examination. Firstly, seeing sperm in female urine samples is not a pathologic condition and secondly, it has no relevance in the evaluation of urine sample, although it may cause interference especially in urinary protein detection. However, there are other cases wherein the Med-tech must report it:
    1. If the urine sample belongs to a minor especially children under 12 years of age.
    2. If the patient is admitted and unconscious.
    3. If the patient is mentally ill.
    The best practice to be followed when you see sperm in a urine sample from the 3 conditions of patients is to request for a new specimen and re-test it. Most importantly, do not forget the "chain of custody form" during collection examination. j.M

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    1. I am a 42 year old post hysterectomy disabled female patient. I had lots of blood visually in my urine over the weekend making it as dark as red wine. A urinalysis was ran and came back with the obvious blood in my urine in addition to proteins and mucus but they also told me I had sperm in my urine. I am not sexually active and have not been since I became widowed over 5 years ago even my doctor has no idea why this would show up...

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  3. I am a 42 year old post hysterectomy disabled female patient. I had lots of blood visually in my urine over the weekend making it as dark as red wine. A urinalysis was ran and came back with the obvious blood in my urine in addition to proteins and mucus but they also told me I had sperm in my urine. I am not sexually active and have not been since I became widowed over 5 years ago even my doctor has no idea why this would show up...

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    Replies
    1. Possibilities are there If the urine may be contaminated with other urine or sperm or the slide used is contaminated with sperm

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  4. I’m a minor, 16 years old and i think i may have urethritis or some sort of UTI. I’m sexually active, i use birth control and had sex recently (about 48 hours ago) but my parents don’t know that I’m sexually active and would throw a fit if they found out. Me being under 18, would it be reported to my parents? Or can the semen/sperm even be detected if the lab were to do a urine sample/culture two days after having sex? Also, I can’t think of anything besides having sex that would cause a UTI to develop, although my partner and I were both virgins, and have no STIs or STDs and we’re safe and smart about it every time so it can’t be that. I don’t know if this is simply an irritation that’ll go away or if I should seriously get it checked out, but I’m very worried that if they take a urine culture test then the sperm might show up and it’ll get reported back to my parents. And often times my parents are in the medical room with me and the doctor so I don’t have a chance to ask if, god forbid they find sperm in the urine sample, not to tell my parents. I don’t really want to stop having sex but if I have to then I will, but I just want to do anything possible to keep it a secret.

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