[Recurrent cystitis in young girls. Clinical and radiologic aspects]

The authors emphasise the importance of radiological investigation of all children with urological infections. The key studies are complete intravenous urography and retrograde cystography. A broad sub-division of situations may be used to draw a distinction between recurrent cystitis in the young girl with an organic cause (urethral stenosis) and recurrent cystitis of functional origin. Organic urethral stenosis may be diagnosed immediately on the basis of radiological findings of an association of vesical hypertrophy and a permanent narrowing of the distal urethra with proximal dilatation, persisting during the different phases of micturition. This possibility is rare. By contrast, functional causes are much more common: spasm of the striate sphincter, absence of inhibition of the bladder, neurological dysfunction resulting in a non-neurogenic neurogenic bladder. There remains recurrent cystitis due to insufficiently frequent micturition. Analysis of the factors actually responsible for recurrent infections in any given child may be made difficult when they are present in association.