Urine microscopic analysis

Ottiger C, Huber AR. Quantitative urine particle analysis integrative approach for the optimal combination of automation with UF-100 and microscopic review with KOVA. cell chamber. Clin Chem 2003 49 617-23. 

Experimental design Rats (7-13 male and 10-13 female) were exposed to 1,4-dichlorobenzene vapors for 7 hours a day, 5 days a week at concentrations of 0, 96, or 158 ppm for a total of 126-139 exposures. At the end of the exposure period, the animals were sacrificed, body and organ weights determined, and tissues examined microscopically. Hematology (parameters not specified), analysis of urine (blood, glucose, albumin, and sediment) and measurement of blood urea nitrogen were conducted for females exposed to the lowest concentration of 1,4-dichlorobenzene. 

It must be remembered that the materials that are being considered were not even suspected to exist at the beginning of the twentieth century. Once it was realized that microscopic quantities of materials can greatly affect our metabolic systems, these techniques became crucial in the development and understanding of the mechanism of drugs and the analysis of residues in urine, etc. 

Urinalysis—The diagnostic analysis of urine and its components can be microscopic or macroscopic in nature. 

Tests in this list are grouped by the following types blood, electrodiagnostic, endoscopy, fluid analysis, manometric, microscopic examination, nuclear scan, other studies, sputum, stool, ultrasound, urine, and x-ray. 

Analysis.—In fatal cases of poisoning by oxalic acid the contents of the stomach are sometimes strongly acid in reaction more usually, owing to the administration of antidotes, neutral, or even alkaline. In a systematic analysis the poison is to be sought for in the residue of the portion examined for prussic acid And phosphorus or, if the examination for those substances be omitted, in the residue or final alkaline fluid of the process for alkaloids. If oxalic acid alone is to be sought for, the contents of the stomach, or other substances if acid, are extracted with water, the liquid filtered, the filtrate evaporated, the residue extracted with alcohol, the alcoholic fluid evaporated, the residue redissolved in water (solution No. 1). The portion undissolved by alcohol is extracted with alcohol acidulated wdth hydrochloric. acid, the solution evaporated after filtration, the residue dissolved in water (solution No. 2). Solution No. 1 contains any oxalic acid which may have existed free in the substances examined No. 2 that which existed in the form of soluble oxalates. If lime or magnesia have been administered as an antidote, the substances must be boiled for an hour or two with potassium carbonate (not the hydroxid), filtered, and the filtrate treated as above. In the solutions so obtained, oxalic acid is characterized by the tests given above. The urine is also to be examined microscopically for crystals of calicum oxalate. The stomach may contain small quantities of oxalates as normal constituents of certain foods. 

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