Metabolomics of urinary tract infection: a new uroscope in town.

Urinary tract infection (UTI) is a potentially life-threatening infectious disease. For rapid directed therapy of UTIs, it is essential to determine the causative microorganism. To date, there is no single test that has been proven to reliably, rapidly and accurately identify the etiologic organism in UTI. The molecular methods for diagnosing the cause of UTI and prognostic development of clinically important metabolomic evaluations and their limitations for use in the diagnosis and monitoring of infections are discussed in this review article. The application of the emerging investigative device NMR spectroscopy as a surrogate method for the diagnosis of UTI is also addressed.