Introduction to chronic prostatitis and chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CP/CPPS).

Prostatitis is the most frequently diagnosed illness in men under 50, accounting for about 8% of all consultations with urologists. Estimates based on published studies suggest that the incidence of prostatitis in the population is somewhere between 4% and 11%. In 1995 the National Institutes of Health (NIH) classified prostatitis into 4 main categories: 1) acute bacterial; 2) chronic bacterial; 3) pelvic pain syndrome; 4) asymptomatic inflammatory. The aetiological agent most often involved is bacterial, particularly the category of Gram (-) bacteria, followed by Gram (+), chlamydiae and mycoplasms; however many cases of prostatitis are caused by bacteria which are difficult to isolate or …