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Interstitial cystitis
What causes interstitial cystitis?
Some of the symptoms of IC resemble those of bacterial infection, but medical tests reveal no organisms in the urine of patients with IC. Furthermore, patients with IC do not respond to antibiotic therapy. Researchers are working to understand the causes of IC and to find effective treatments.
One theory being studied is that IC is an autoimmune response following a bladder infection. Another theory is that a bacterium may be present in bladder cells but not detectable through routine urine tests. Some scientists have suggested that certain substances in urine may be irritating to people with IC, but no substance unique to people with IC has as yet been isolated. Researchers are beginning to explore the possibility that heredity may play a part in some forms of IC. In a few cases, IC has affected a mother and a daughter or two sisters, but it does not commonly run in families. No gene has yet been implicated as a cause.
Are there different types of IC?
Because IC varies so much in symptoms and severity, most researchers believe that it is not one, but several, diseases. In the past, cases were mainly categorized as ulcerative IC or nonulcerative IC, based on whether ulcers had formed on the bladder wall. But many researchers and clinicians have questioned the usefulness of this classification, since the vast majority of cases do not involve ulcers, and their presence or absence does not influence treatment options as much as other factors do.
Factors that influence treatment options include whether bladder capacity under anesthesia is great or small, and whether mast cells are present in the tissue of the bladder wall, which may be a sign of an allergic or autoimmune reaction. In some cases, the success or failure of a treatment helps characterize the type of IC. For example, some cases respond to changes in diet while others do not.
What is interstitial cystitis?
How is interstitial cystitis diagnosed?
