Does the chronic prostatitis/pelvic pain syndrome differ from nonbacterialprostatitis and prostatodynia?

Purpose: The new consensus classification considers the chronic prostatitis /pelvic pain syndrome (CPPS) based on presence or absence of leukocytes in the expressed prostatic secretions, post-massage urine or seminal fluid ana lysis. We compared classification based on evaluation of these 3 specimens to the traditional classification based on expressed prostatic secretion ex amination alone. Materials and Methods: A prospective clinical and laboratory protocol was u sed to evaluate symptomatic patients who had no evidence of urethritis, acu te bacterial prostatitis or chronic bacterial prostatitis. Results: Thorough clinical and microbiological evaluation of 310 patients a ttending our prostatitis clinic was used to select a population of 140 subj ects who provided optimal expressed prostatic secretion, post-massage urine and semen specimens. Inflammation was documented in 111 (26%) of 420 sampl es, including 39 expressed prostatic secretion samples with 500 or greater leukocytes/mm.(3), 32 post-massage urine samples with 1 or greater leukocyt es/mm.(3) and 40 seminal fluid specimens with 1 or greater million leukocyt es/mm.3. Of the 140 subjects 73 (52%) had inflammatory chronic prostatitis/ pelvic pain according to the consensus criteria but only 39 (28%) had nonba cterial prostatitis according to traditional expressed prostatic secretion criteria (p <0.001). Conclusions: The new consensus concept of inflammatory chronic prostatitis/ pelvic pain includes almost twice as many patients as the traditional categ ory of nonbacterial prostatitis.