Dr Paul Schreckenberger passes - a big loss for microbiology research

Late last year Dr Paul Schreckenberger died suddenly of a heart attack - aged 69 years.

Dr Schreckenberger was a world leading expert in microbiology.  He was the Director of the Clinical Microbiology lab at Loyola University and involved in the research from the Loyola Urinary Education & Research Collaborative into the urinary microbiota, often highlighting the problems with inadequate testing methods clinical labs use to diagnose (to rule out) UTI.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/obituaries/ct-paul-schreckenberger-obituary-20161207-story.html

You can see him being interviewed here in 2014 with the Loyola Urinary Research team.

This is one of his quotes from the interview about poor testing:

"That’s another myth – the fact that infections are present only when the bacteria are present at 10^5 or greater. And, that was never the intent of Kass’ original report. The amount of bacteria present in a urine in people that have UTI varies throughout the 24 hour clock. When you get up in the morning and the urine been concentrated during the night, sure it can be 10^5. But at 11 o’clock when you’ve had your coffee and urinated a few of times, it can be 10^2 and that’s also significant. But labs aren’t culturing at 10^2 and so I think we miss a lot of true urinary tract infections by setting these cut off limits based on another dogma that we think needs to be trashed. We basically have to relearn everthing about urinary tract because we were misled. Our beliefs were unfounded. We are now, with the new science, realising everything we were taught is probably wrong. The clinicians that we work with are quite distraught over this," Dr Paul Schreckenberger.

This is a big loss.  Hopefully he inspired plenty of young microbiology students who absorbed his knowledge and will pick up where he left off. We need more like him!

This is a great interview. Dr Schrekenberger makes it so clear how this testing error came about, the consequences and how everything now needs to be re-thought. I’m sure GPs/urologists would welcome better testing; especially when dealing with patients showing significant urinary tract symptoms and negative lab results. My feeling is that unless health authorities are lobbied hard the chances of better urinary diagnostics being introduced are not so good.

Does anyone know what arguments microbiologists use to defend these tests?

Dr Schrekenberger is certainly a very huge loss. Thanks for posting this.

My problems started after 2 significant UTIs last year. I think it makes sense that I'm still in pain because the infection is still there. When I get tests done it often shows bacteria but in numbers that are too low to qualify as a UTI. People are suffering while the medical profession sits on their hands. It seems like they are stuck in their old ways and too stupid or stubborn to change. This is why I'm greatful for this research and I hope they find the answers. They need new ways to test for UTIs. I'm worried the longer this goes on the more chances of irreversible damage to our bladders.

I am 100% convinced testing is the issue. Once misdiagnosed and not given treatment, the problem develops into much more than a normal acute UTI that can be resolved with a short course of antibiotics. If you can manage to talk to a microbiologist in a lab (almost impossible), they don't want to hear about Wolfe and Braubaker's findings of a urinary microbiota. How long can they ignore the science and why do they want to?

Sarah321, the VAST majority of people I interact with who have this condition started out with a UTI or a UTI history (me included).

Do some online research and read up on papers from the Loyola Urinary Research Collaborative, Scott Hultgren from WUSTL, James Malone-Lee from UCL. It's not easy when you don't have a science brain like me, but persist and you'll find things make sense for the first time since this kicked off (with that UTI!).