Urinary tract infections in females.

Urinary tract infections (UTIs) encompass a wide variety of clinical entities. These include urethritis, cystitis, and acute and chronic pyelonephritis. Often the condition is clinically silent and detected only by the finding of large numbers of microorganisms in the urine. Asymptomatic bacteriuria or asymptomatic funguria may be limited to colonization of the urine without an apparent inflammatory response. This condition should be considered to be an asymptomatic infection when accompanied by pyuria. Asymptomatic individuals are at risk of developing symptomatic infection.