Utilidad de los contadores hematológicos en el diagnóstico diferencial de las hematurias

Morphological examination of the urine sediment is the fi rst step in the diagnosis of haematuria, being the presence of dysmorphic erythrocytes indicative of glomerular bleeding. The red cell volume distribution curves (RVDC), the mean corpuscular volume of urine erythrocytes (MCVu) and the red cell distribution wide (RDWu) obtained in a Haematology analyzer, were evaluated to determine the source of hematuria. Urine specimens from 50 patients with haematuria of different origin were analyzed with phase-contrast microscopy (PCM) and in the analyzer. MCVu was 63.0 ± 9.2fl vs 90.8 ±11.3fl (p 35% (sensitivity: 86.2%; specifi city: 96.2%) defi ned the glomerular hematuria. The sensitivity of the patterns of RVDCu was 86.0% and specifi city 96.0%. The analysis of the MCVu, RDWu and the RVDCu are rapid, simple and objective methods and could be an alternative to PCM. Key word: glomerular haematuria, dysmorphic erythrocytes, haematology analyzer