Quantifying symptoms in men with interstitial cystitis/prostatitis, and its correlation with potassium-sensitivity...

To determine whether men previously diagnosed with prostatitis also have pathology originating in the bladder.

We administered the pelvic pain and urgency/frequency (PUF) questionnaire and the potassium-sensitivity test (PST) to 50 patients with prostatitis presenting in urological and primary care, and to 14 controls. In a separate control group of 22 men, the urethra was irrigated with KCl or NaCl (11 each) before and after experimental injury of the urethral mucosa.

All 50 patients with prostatitis had PUF scores of > or = 7; 77% were positive for the PST. All 14 controls had PUF scores of 1 or 0 and a negative PST. In the urethral irrigation study in controls, KCl but not NaCl provoked urethral pain after mucosal injury. Before injury, neither KCl nor NaCl caused symptoms.

The high rate of positive PST in patients with "classic" prostatitis indicates that pathology originating in the bladder may be an important source of symptoms in most. In patients with prostatitis and female patients with interstitial cystitis, symptoms may arise not from separate disease entities but from a continuum of epithelial dysfunction and potassium cycling that may be present throughout the lower urinary tract.