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Prostatitis may account for up to 25 percent of all office visits by young and
middle-aged men for complaints of the genital and urinary systems. The term
prostatitis actually encompasses four disorders of the prostate:
Acute bacterial prostatitis is the least common of the four types but
also the easiest to diagnose and treat effectively. Men with this disease often
have chills, fever, pain in the lower back and genital area, urinary frequency
and urgency often at night, burning or painful urination, body aches, and a
demonstrable infection of the urinary tract, as evidenced by white blood cells
and bacteria in the urine. It is treated with an appropriate antibiotic.
Chronic bacterial prostatitis is also relatively uncommon. It is acute prostatitis associated with an underlying defect in the prostate, a focal point for bacterial persistence in the urinary tract. Effective treatment usually requires identifying and removing the defect and then treating the infection with antibiotics. However, antibiotics often do not cure it.
Chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome is the most common but
least understood form of the disease. It is found in men of any age; symptoms
go away and then return without warning. Chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic
pain syndrome may be inflammatory or noninflammatory. In the inflammatory form,
urine, semen, and other fluids from the prostate show no evidence of a known
infecting organism but do contain cells the body usually produces to fight infection.
In the noninflammatory form, no evidence of inflammation, including infection-fighting
cells, is present.
Asymptomatic inflammatory prostatitis is the diagnosis when the patient
does not complain of pain or discomfort but has infection-fighting cells in
his semen. Doctors usually find this form of prostatitis when looking for causes
of infertility or testing for prostate cancer.
More information is available from
American Foundation for Urologic Disease
1128 North Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
E-mail: admin@afud.org
Tel: (800) 242-2383, (410) 727-2908 Home page: http://www.afud.org
Thomas Bruckman, Executive Director and CEO
The Prostatitis Foundation
1063 30th Street, Box 8
Smithshire, IL 61478
E-mail: mcapstone@aol.com Home page:
http://www.prostatitis.org
(888) 891-4200
Additional Information on Prostatitis
The National Kidney and Urologic Diseases Information Clearinghouse collects resource information on kidney and urologic diseases for the Combined Health Information Database (CHID). CHID is a database produced by health-related agencies of the Federal Government. This database provides titles, abstracts, and availability information for health information and health education resources. To provide you with the most up-to-date resources, information specialists at the clearinghouse created an automatic CHID search. To obtain this information, you may view the results of the automatic search on prostatitis. Or if you wish to perform your own search of the database, you may access the CHID Online and search CHID yourself.
National Kidney and Urologic Diseases Information Clearinghouse 3 Information Way Bethesda, MD 20892-3580
National Kidney and Urologic Diseases Information Clearinghouse The National Kidney and Urologic Diseases Information Clearinghouse (NKUDIC) is a service of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). NIDDK is part of the National Institutes of Health under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Established in 1987, the clearinghouse provides information about diseases of the kidneys and urologic system to people with kidney and urologic disorders and to their families, health care professionals, and the public. NKUDIC answers inquiries; develops, reviews, and distributes publications; and works closely with professional and patient organizations and Government agencies to coordinate resources about kidney and urologic diseases. Publications produced by the clearinghouse are carefully reviewed for scientific accuracy, content, and readability. This e-text is not copyrighted. The clearinghouse encourages users of this e-pub to duplicate and distribute as many copies as desired.
NIH Publication No. 00-4553
e-text posted: December 1999 e-text last updated: March 2000
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