The urine examination: a modern technological test with a very ancient history

For centuries, the only 'semeiological and laboratory' test that the physician had at his disposal to point towards to a diagnosis was the urine test. It was based on the chemical and physical properties evaluation of the sample. During the last decade of the 20th century, the use of flow cytometry opened new perspectives in the diagnostic strategy of urine examination, making it possible to automate a typically manual procedure that was represented by reading the urine sediment under an optical microscope. The combination of fully automated physical chemical and urinary sediment testing has increased the amount of information we can obtain from a simple urine test. Today's fully automated analyzers have an accurate cell count and an excellent particle differentiation which brought a higher diagnostic reliability. Today's uranalysis is the product of many scientists, chemists, physicians, that over decades have developed, increased the accuracy, have tried to understand, and give a meaning to all aspects (physical, chemical, and morphological) that can be found in a simple urine test. Our hope is that the urine test will be increasingly re-evaluated for the enormous diagnostic potential it can offer, also in view of a medicine that is increasingly geared to the individual needs of each patient.