[Trinket555]

I am a RN in the Operating room and today I witnessed something I have never seen before in my life and I am looking for possible answers/causes - input would be greatly appreciated.

The case was a 32. year old female having a cone biopsy done for grade III Ca. The MD straight cath'd the patient for 300 cc of golden yellow urine which was retained in the suction canister. WE then proceeded to utilize a CDIS pump with saline irrigation using 1600 cc saline in about 30 minutes during the procedure. After the procedure I noted the suction canister was "layered" in appearance with all the urine on the bottom and the very pale pink saline on top of it. The effect almost of having a sheet of saran wrap seperating the urine and the saline.

I have been thinking about this all day - specific gravity usually measured in relation to water and saline being higher I am thinking the specific gravity had to be very much higher than saline to cause this effect. My questions are - have you ever seen this? possible explanations? causes?

Thank you for your time and thoughts,

Driving me crazy RN

[UroDoc]

I agree it has to be specific gravity, just like you layer a cocktail

[Trinket555]

so what are some possible causes of a high specific gravity to that degree? adrenal issues? or could it possibly be something like a heavy metal exposure? I have no experience at all with those. Obviously this woman was already diagnosed with cervical ca, am wondering if this could have been an indication of adrenal issues as well?

[UroDoc]

I would imagine that the urine was concentrated from being NPO or other metabolic casuse