Etiology and pathogenesis of prostatitis

The first step in adopting a practical approach to the management of patien ts with prostatitis lies in the realization that the etiology of the sympto ms often remains unclear and the traditional etiologically based classifica tion system is part of the problem and not the solution. This problem was r ecognized in 1995 by the National Institutes of Health Consensus Conference an prostatitis. It was suggested that the classification of this disease b e changed. The traditional categories "chronic nonbacterial prostatitis" an d "prostatodynia" were replaced by the new category "chronic pelvic pain sy ndrome. The introduction of the term "syndrome" reflects two issues: despit e lack of evidence for bacterial involvement based on conventional methods, nonbacterial prostatitis may indeed still be an infectious disease, and th e etiology of the symptoms may he caused by a disorder not related to the p rostate gland alone.