Analysis of Urine and Body Fluids
 Analyzing urine is still one of the
simplest ways to screen a person quickly for underlying medical
conditions. That’s why so many physician offices still perform
routine urinalysis when you are getting a checkup. Frequently,
you are only having your specimen checked by a "dipstick".
However, good urinalysis is not really that simple. For example,
did you know that if you are taking large doses of Vitamin C
that it will make the test for sugar negative? Did you know that
you can sometimes even see crystals in urine if a person has
kidney stones?
Urinalysis lets us study the kidney and
how the body forms urine, so that we can u nderstand what things should and
should not be present in a urine specimen. Urine is a body fluid that is
easily collected and usually plentiful, so that many laboratory tests can be
performed which can access the function of the kidney as well as many other
organs in the body. The analysis of urine is one of the oldest lab tests
performed for these reasons.
When we study urinalysis in the
classroom, we study how the kidney forms urine, the physical and chemical
composition of urine in health and disease, and the microscopic appearance
of a centrifuged urine specimen in health and disease.
Since other body fluids share
similarities to urine, we also study their physical, chemical, and
microscopic components so that we can assess health or disease states. You
can actually see crystals of uric acid in joint fluid specimens of people
with gout. Sometimes, bacteria which can cause meningitis can be seen after
staining spinal fluid. For all these reasons and others, urine and body fluid
analysis remains a powerful tool in medical diagnostics, yet it can only be
performed well with the types of knowledge and skills utilized by medical
lab scientists.
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