Evaluation of the Clinitek 200 urinary test-strip reader in the analysis of dog and rat urines in pre-clinical toxicology studies.

The performance of a clinical urinary test-strip reader Clinitek 200 was evaluated for dog and rat urines, in the context of pre-clinical toxicology studies. No major discrepancies were found between data generated by visual estimation or automatic measurement. Analysis of spiked samples showed good agreement between actual concentrations and Clinitek 200 responses for ketone bodies and glucose although a lack of sensitivity was found for the latter. Results for proteins showed over- or underestimation in dog and rat urines respectively at low concentrations, and overestimation at high concentrations in both species. Reproducibility of responses was excellent for ketone bodies, glucose and proteins but was weaker for haemoglobin and bilirubin. High bilirubin concentrations were found to interfere with the haemoglobin reaction. The pH measurements were found to be accurate only around pH 7. Specific gravity measurements were unreliable. Overall, the Clinitek 200 as a screening tool proved sufficiently reliable in the measurement of all parameters tested, with the exception of specific gravity.