Surgery | Common Surgical Conditions | Genitourinary Disease: Haematuria

Genitourinary Disease: Haematuria
Session Overview
Description
This session will provide an overview of haematuria including when it’s significant, its causes and initial investigations and management.

Learning Objectives
By the end of this session you will be able to:

• Define haematuria
• Explain when haematuria is significant
• List the causes of haematuria
• Outline the investigations and management for haematuria

Prerequisites
Before commencing this session you should:

• Basic knowledge of renal physiology
• Basic understanding of urinary tract anatomy

Haematuria is commonly seen in both the community and hospital environment. It can, for example, be a normal finding with up to 1 million red blood cells (RBCs) being excreted over a 24 hour period in normal people or non-visible haematuria in 20% of men over 60 years old. Distinguishing between what is normal and abnormal can be challenging. Due to the large volumes of patients with haematuria, knowing when and how to investigate is important.

A significant proportion of patients with visible haematuria will have an underlying condition requiring treatment. Despite it being a smaller proportion of patients, there are also those with non-visible haematuria that can also have an underlying pathology. There is no way to identify which patient has a significant pathology from the urine dipstick alone. A careful urological history and examination, alongside basic initial investigations, needs to be undertaken to identify these patients

Urology departments have a dedicated 2 week wait one-stop haematuria clinic where specialist investigations can then be undertaken.