Ambulatory and Office Urology Prevalence and Impact of Bacteriuria and/or Urinary Tract Infection in Interstitial Cystitis/Painful Bladder Syndrome

A total of 100 patients with IC were followed up for 2 years. Of these 100 patients, 31 (31%) had 1 documented positive urine culture with a traditional uropathogen (mean 1.8, range 1-5). No difference was seen in the patients identified with bacteriuria and those without bacteriuria in age, symptom duration, O’Leary-Sant IC Symptom and Problem Indexes, Pain Urgency Frequency questionnaire, or pain, frequency, and urgency Likert scales. No correlation was found between the number of bacteriuria episodes and any symptom index evaluated. No significant difference was seen in any of the symptom indexes evaluated at baseline, during the bacteriuria episodes, or after successful bacterial eradication in the group identified with bacteriuria. CONCLUSIONS The presence of bacteriuria can be documented in an IC/PBS population of women whose urine has frequently been cultured; however, the patients with bacteriuria did not differ from those without evidence of bacteriuria, the bacteriuria episodes did not appear to be associated with the symptom flares, and antibiotic treatment of documented bacteriuria was not associated with significant IC/PBS-related symptom amelioration. UROLOGY 76: 799‐803, 2010. © 2010 Elsevier Inc.