BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Many patients who presented to Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre (UKMMC) with signs and symptoms of urolithiasis had mild hydronephrosis with non visualization of calculus on ultrasound examination. These patients underwent an intravenous urogram (IVU) in order to determine the presence of urolithiasis and most of them had normal IVU. The main aim of this study was to determine the predictive value of urinalysis in this group of patients in determining the need for IVU examinations.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: Retrospectively the ultrasound, urinalysis and intravenous urography reports of 53 patients were reviewed and evaluated.
RESULTS: The positive predictive and negative predictive value of urinalysis was found to be 68% and 96.4%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS; The results indicate that the urinalysis was an excellent negative predictor for IVU. In view of high radiation dose, risk of contrast reaction and contrast induced nephropathy of IVU, we suggest that it should not be performed in patient with non visualization of calculus mild hydronephrosis when the urinalysis is negative for blood.
Study site: Pusat Perubatan Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (PPUKM)
Leptospirosis has been reported as an endemic in most tropical countries. Among high risk occupations, leptospirosis includes workers in agriculture and domestic animal industries. Environmental hygiene in the wet market has established a link between the presence of rodents with probability of leptospirosis infection. This study was aimed to compare the level of knowledge, attitude and preventive practice against leptospirosis between healthy Malaysian and non-Malaysian wet market workers in selected wet markets in urban areas of Selangor. A cross-sectional study in the determined area was conducted with the participation of 147 respondents. The respondents were randomly chosen from the list provided by the state agency that regulates these markets. A self-administered bilingual validated questionnaire (English and Bahasa Melayu) was distributed to the selected respondents. There were 68 (48.3%) Malaysian respondents and 79 (53.7%) non-Malaysian respondents. The majority of them were males, who attained formal education and were less than 40 years old. Meanwhile, the respondents earned less than RM3000. Among the Malaysian respondents, 80.9% were aware of leptospirosis as compared to 17.7% of the non-Malaysian colleagues (p < 0.05). All items of knowledge showed that the Malaysian respondents scored higher as compared to non-Malaysian respondents. On attitude towards infection prevention, most Malaysian respondents had a positive attitude, while most non-Malaysian respondents had undecided perception on the majority of crucial attitude items. In practicing preventive measures, there was a marked significant difference in proportion between Malaysian and non-Malaysian respondents for items on "Specific Protection and Isolation at Source." There was a significant gap on knowledge, attitude and preventive practice among Malaysian workers as compared to non-Malaysian workers. Therefore, it was highly recommended the health promotion implementation should also provide specific focus on non-Malaysian workers.