UltraWee: Ultrasound Bladder Stimulation to Help With Clean Catch Urine in Pre-Continent Children

Standard procedure for obtaining urine samples in the pediatrics emergency department consists of a clean catch urine (CCU). For those patients who are still pre-continent, this involves cleaning the genitourinary (GU) area with betadine followed with waiting with a specimen cup for the patient to produce urine.

Currently, the CCU technique has had mixed success rates of micturition, some studies showing as low as 12% success rate. Because of the mixed success rates, often times these patients are subjected to the discomfort and trauma of a urinary catheter. Catheterization also occurs in patients with clinical conditions that require urine samples under time sensitive conditions.

Less invasive ways of urine collections have been recently studied. The Quick-Wee study was a novel study that showed a promising alternative to obtaining urine samples in pre-continent children when compared to the CCU sample. This method served as a noninvasive way to obtain a urine sample, thus preventing uncomfortable and traumatic urinary catheterizations and improving parent satisfaction scores.

The investigators hope to study the effectiveness of another technique for obtaining a urine sample without urinary catheterization: ultrasound stimulation. By incorporating ultrasound evaluation of the bladder, the UltraWee study hopes to decrease the number of failed attempts at obtaining a urine sample in pre-continent children less than thirty-six months of age.

The UltraWee study will be a prospective randomized controlled trial comparing success rate of and time to obtaining a urine sample in pre-continent children between standard clean catch urine method and using ultrasound stimulation clean catch methods. The objective of this study is to see if ultrasound stimulation increases success rate and decreases time to micturition.