Urinary tract infection (uti)

Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are one of the most common infections in modern medicine, ranking second after respiratory tract infections, causing more than seven million physicians’ visits and 100,000 hospitalizations per year in the USA [ 1, 2 ]. UTIs are responsible for nearly 15 % of all community prescription antibiotics and are causes for more than one billion dollar costs per year to manage them [ 1, 3 ]. Women are in general more likely to be affected with UTIs. Almost half of all women will experience at least one UTI during their lifetime [ 3 ]. High prevalence of UTIs in conjunction with inappropriate and excessive antimicrobial treatment are risk factors of increasing antibiotic resistance. Since many clinical studies regarding treatment of UTIs have investigated women in large healthcare facilities in the USA, physicians should evaluate whether reviews and guidelines for UTI treatment are suitable to their local patients population. On the other side, inconsequent therapy of UTIs may result in potentially lethal urosepsis, renal abscess formation, and chronic pyelonephritis.