Efficacy of an orally administered combination of hyaluronic acid, chondroitin sulfate, curcumin and quercetin for the prevention of recurrent urinary tract infections in postmenopausal women

Abstract Objective To assess whether the orally administered combination of hyaluronic acid (HA), chondroitin sulfate (CS), curcumin and quercetin could be effective in preventing recurrent cystitis in postmenopausal women and whether its efficacy was conditioned by the concurrent use of local estrogen therapy. Study design This was a prospective evaluation of 145 postmenopausal women consecutively recruited from the database of three different investigators. All women should have mild-to-moderate urogenital atrophy and a history of recurrent urinary tract infections (≥2 episodes within 6 months or ≥3 episodes within 12 months documented by positive urine cultures) during the last year. Patients were assigned to three different therapeutic regimens: the first group was treated only with vaginal estrogens, the second group only with HA, CS, curcumin and quercetin per os , and the third group was treated with HA, CS, curcumin and quercetin associated with local estrogens. We evaluated the number of patients with t -test and chi-squared test were used for data analysis as appropriate. Results At 6-month follow up, the main aim rate was 8%, 11.1% and 25% in the three groups, respectively (p  Conclusions In postmenopausal women, the combination of HA, CS, curcumin and quercetin per os was effective in preventing recurrent urinary tract infections, especially if administered with vaginal estrogen therapy.