Frederico Goncalves
Interstitial cystitis is a chronic debilitating urinary bladder disease, mainly characterized by urinary urgency, frequency and bladder and pelvic pain on bladder filling. The disease is easily confused with those of urinary tract infection; there is however an absence of underlying infection and antibiotic therapy is of no benefit. Severe forms of the disease which affect mainly women can have a negative impact on patient’s wellbeing because of extreme urinary frequency. The diagnosis is based on patient history, physical examination and cystoscopy under general anaesthesia. A lot of pharmacological treatments have been used with variable but limited success, including pentosan polysulfate, heparin, hyaluronic acid, antihistaminics, tricyclic antidepressants and also intravesical dimethyl sulfoxide and bacille Calmette-Guérin. Among potentially useful new treatments modalities currently under clinical trials investigation are resiniferotoxin and botulinum toxin. As the knowledge of the etiopathogenesis of IC increases through intensive research available effective therapy will improve. A state of art on epidemiology, etiopathology and therapy is presented.