The assessment of the clinical value of UTIA in the elderly remained to be done.
The main objectives of this prospective clinical study were: (a) to define reference values of UTIA in healthy elderly subjects without any inflammatory diseases; (b) to study the influence of renal function and proteinuria on UTIA; (c) to assess the diagnostic value of this variable for bacterial diseases in elderly, patients compared with other inflammatory proteins.
An unpublished previous study showed a positive correlation between UTIA, determined on 24-hour-old collected urine samples and the activity on freshly, collected urine samples (n = 25, r = 0.90).
Receiver operating characteristic curves (ROC), known to provide the desired accuracy index, were obtained for CRP and UTIA in group I compared to group VIII.
The mean UTIA did not differ with sex (men: n = 5, m = 71 [+ or -] 19 IU/g creat; women: n = 14, m = 60 [+ or -] 46 IU/g creat).
The mean UTIA was 138 [+ or -] 35 IU/g creat without significant differences with sex (men: 150 [+ or -] 47 IU/g creat, women: 125 [+ or -] 25 IU/g creat).
The study of these patients included 77 men and 123 women (respective UTIA: 120 [+ or -] 30 IU/g creat; 105 [+ or -] 20 IU/g creat; global UTIA = 115 [+ or -] 20 IU/g creat).