September 2024—Tried and true but also having untapped potential is how three industry insiders see urinalysis. Though traditional urinalysis serves its purpose well, they say, it’s easy to envision the next level. “We tend to look at urinalysis with a fairly myopic view of counting particles and doing a dipstick,” says Jason Anderson, MPH, MT(ASCP), senior product manager for urinalysis solutions, Sysmex America. “So what becomes the definition of urinalysis in the future?” he asks. “When we look at blood, it isn’t plasma analysis, it isn’t serum analysis. It’s specific disease conditions, disciplines that use that fluid type. So I see urinalysis becoming a broader field in a sense that there has been a lack of research in urinalysis in general for some time and there’s huge capacity in a urine sample and an unmet need for better biomarkers.” This need, he says, spans the spectrum of diseases, not just renal diseases. “And those biomarkers, those metabolites, that are potentially useful in diagnosing various conditions can be found in urine.”