What is occult blood in urine

If you suspect that there is a problem with your urinary system, you should go to the hospital for a comprehensive examination in time, so that you can detect what kind of problem your urinary system has in time. When hospitals generally infer problems with the urinary system, they usually ask patients to undergo routine urine tests. Urinalysis can effectively reflect the substance components contained in urine. If there is occult blood in urine, what disease does it represent?

What is occult blood in urine?

Generally speaking, there are three main reasons for occult blood in urine: inflammation, stones, and tumors. In terms of inflammation, such as pyelonephritis, cystitis, etc. In addition to the possibility of finding hematuria, urine examination may also show occult blood. Whether it is kidney, ureter or bladder stones, these may cause occult blood in the urine.

What is really worrying is the occult blood in the urine caused by tumors, such as benign or malignant tumors of the kidneys, bladder, and ureters. Of course, older men may have hematuria or occult blood in the urine after straining to urinate due to prostate enlargement and excessive residual urine, which makes the bladder prone to inflammation, congestion of blood vessels on the surface of the prostate, and difficulty urinating.

In fact, prostate hypertrophy is also a type of tumor. It is a tumor of the prostate gland that becomes enlarged due to proliferation. Therefore, tumors in the urinary tract should not be taken lightly.

Urine occult blood also varies in different ages and genders. Young women may have occult blood in their urine when having a urine test. In addition to clinical symptoms, it is also necessary to understand whether it is the menstrual period. The most common one is cystitis.

However, if the patient is a male aged 30-40 and does not have obvious symptoms of inflammation, an abdominal X-ray should sometimes be taken to see if there is a possibility of stones. In addition to hematuria or occult blood in the urine and prostate hypertrophy as the main considerations, elderly men should also undergo further intravenous pyelography or ultrasound examination to see if there is a tumor in the urinary system.

In addition, urine cytology is also a method to detect malignant tumors. If X-rays, ultrasounds and urine cytology are all normal, but occult blood is still present in the urine, it is best to undergo a cystourethroscopy.

Because X-rays and ultrasounds have limitations, not all tumors can be visualized. At this time, we can only use the naked eye to directly observe smaller lesions (cystourethroscopy). If these examinations show no abnormal findings, we call this occult blood in the urine or hematuria "benign unexplained hematuria", which may be related to the body's immune mechanism and only requires regular follow-up in the future.