CHRONIC PROSTATITIS COLLABORATIVE CLINICAL STUDIES

描述(摘自申请人的摘要) 慢性非细菌性前列腺炎可能是最常见的诊断 在美国寻求泌尿科医生护理的男性，但几乎 人们对这种疾病的病因或治疗方法一无所知。 有效地。患有这种疾病的患者有慢性、复发性和 以盆腔疼痛、刺激性症状为特征的阵发性疾病 以及梗阻性排尿症状，性功能障碍， 包括痛苦的射精。这些症状与 患有前列腺癌和传染性前列腺癌的男性 慢性非细菌性前列腺炎的病因学主导了人们的想法 关于这种疾病已经有很多年了。然而，大量的证据 多年来的积累未能令人信服地证明 感染性因素在很大比例上是导致症状的原因 患有这种疾病的人。被诊断出患有这种疾病的男性通常 长期使用多个疗程的抗生素治疗 成本很高，但几乎没有得到证实的好处。 对这种疾病的进一步定义将取决于三个步骤。第一, 我们必须能够客观地确定谁患有这种疾病，以及病情有多严重。 是基于标准化标准，包括症状评分和 患者的可测量参数。第二，我们必须求同存异 在患有这种疾病的男性和没有这种疾病的正常男性之间，为了 收集具有潜在病因学意义的客观信息。是这样的 研究应包括感染性、炎症性、免疫性、 我们将寻找的遗传和生化参数 患有疾病的男性与对照组之间的统计学差异 男人。最后，针对已确定的致病因素以及 经验性治疗是可以设计和客观评估的。我们建议 通过充当设计的临床中心来为这一努力做出贡献 以及这种研究在多中心环境中的表现。我们会展示的 我们已经并将继续作出实质性的努力 发展对这种疾病的新见解，我们拥有重要的专业知识 在免疫学和泌尿学研究中，我们有记录 慢性非细菌性疾病研究中的患者招募 前列腺炎。

DESCRIPTION (Taken from the applicant's Abstract) Chronic non-bacterial prostatitis is perhaps the most common diagnosis of men in the United States who seek the care of a urologist, yet almost nothing is known about the etiology of the disease or how to treat it effectively. Patients with this condition have a chronic, relapsing and episodic condition characterized by pain in the pelvic region, irritative and obstructive voiding symptoms, and difficulties with sexual function, including painful ejaculation. These symptoms are indistinguishable from those of men with infection of the prostate gland, and an infectious etiology for chronic non-bacterial prostatitis has dominated the thinking about this disease for many years. However, a large body of evidence accumulated over may years has failed to convincingly demonstrate that any infectious agent is responsible for symptoms in a significant proportion of men with the disease. Men diagnosed with the condition are typically treated with multiple courses of antibiotics for prolonged periods of time at great cost and with little proven benefit. The further definition of the disease will depend upon three steps. First, we must be able to objectively define who has the disease and how severe it is, based upon standardized criteria, including symptom scores and measurable parameters in patients. Second, we must search for differences between men who have the disease and normal men who do not, in order to gather objective information of potential etiologic significance. Such studies should include measures of infectious, inflammatory, immunologic, genetic and biochemical parameters for which we will search for statistically significant differences between men with disease and control men. Finally, therapies directed at identified causative factors as well as empirical therapies can be designed and objectively evaluated. We propose to contribute to this effort by serving as a clinical center for the design and performance of such studies in a multi-center setting. We will show that we have already made and are continuing to make a substantial effort to develop new insights into this disease, that we have significant expertise in immunologic and urologic research, and that we have a track record of patient recruitment into research studies in chronic non-bacterial prostatitis.