A Novel Spectrophotometric Assay for the Determination of Biofilm Forming Capacity of Causative Agents of Urinary Tract Infections
According to many studies today the biofilms play a crucial role in the clinical setting and are the cause of many difficult to treat and reoccuring infections. Recently their role in urinary tract infections (UTIs) is becoming very significant as they are known to cause relapses and reoccuring infections especially in patients with indwelling medical devices. Up to today many biofilm testing methodologies have been suggested, however, all of them have certain drawbacks and routine testing of the biofilm forming capacity of causative agents of infection is not conducted. In our study we developed a novel spectrophotometric assay for the evaluation of the biofilm forming capacity of causative agents of UTIs and tested it on 120 urine samples isolated from two medical centars in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The results of the novel spectrophotometric assay were then compared to the results obtained by the tissue culture plate method which was used as a referee. Based on statistical data the sensitivity and specificity of the novel spectrophotometric assay was evaluated to be 95% which is adequate for the use in standard clinical microbiology laboratories for the determination of the biofilm forming capacity of causative agents of UTI. Keywords— Biofilms; Bacteriology; Spectrophotometry; Urine; UTI.