SURVEY OF MYCOBACTERIA ISOLATED FROM URINE AND THE GENITOURINARY TRACT IN SOUTH-EAST ENGLAND FROM 1980 TO 1989

Between 1980 and 1989, the Public Health Laboratory Service Regional Tuberculosis Centre, Dulwich, received cultures of mycobacteria isolated from urine and the genitourinary tract of 1392 new patients: 803 isolates were members of the tuberculosis complex (753 M. tuberculosis, 45 M. bovis, 4 M. africanum) and 589 were various species of environmental mycobacteria. The incidence of the latter isolations varied by region and by year and, with 17 exceptions (13 from endometrial curettings, 2 from hydrocele fluid, 1 from a scrotal abscess and 1 from a kidney), all isolations of environmental mycobacteria were from urine; very few of them appeared to be clinically significant. Those that could be significant included 1 isolate from a kidney, 1 from a post-renal transplant patient and 4 from patients with AIDS, 3 of whom had disseminated mycobacterial disease. Reports of clinically significant isolations of environmental mycobacteria from the genitourinary tract are reviewed.