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CASE REPORT
A unilateral purple urine bag syndrome in a patient with bilateral nephrostomy tubes
  1. Adil Karim,
  2. Firas Abed,
  3. Ghassan Bachuwa
  1. Department of Internal Medicine, Hurley Medical Center, Flint, Michigan, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dr Ghassan Bachuwa, gbachuw2{at}hurleymc.com

Summary

A change in the colour of urine is always of clinical significance, and a source of concern for the patient and his physician. Among the different urine colours observed, purple is the least common. Although purple discolouration of a catheter and a urine bag is an uncommon finding, it was reported in the literature as early as 1978, by Barlow and Dickson. We present a unique case of purple urine bag syndrome in a patient with bilateral nephrostomy tubes (NT) and associated urine bags (UB) with only the left nephrostomy tube and urine bag exhibiting the purple colour, which resolved with a course of appropriate antibiotics eradicating the causative bacterial pathogen, and change of NT and UB.

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