Interstitial cystitis is not contagious. It does not spread in the body and does not seem to worsen with time. It is not a cause of bladder cancer.
The incidence of bladder cancer (BC), upper urinary tract cancer (UUC), and prostate cancer (PC). (a) BC is significantly increased in patients with interstitial cystitis; (b) UUC is significantly increased in patients with interstitial cystitis; (c) PC is similar in patients with interstitial cystitis or not.
Chronic or repeated urinary infections or inflammations (cystitis), such as might happen with long-term use of a urinary catheter, may increase the risk of a squamous cell bladder cancer.
What is the outlook for interstitial cystitis? IC is a chronic disease. Patients may find some comfort in the fact that it is not life-threatening and it does not lead to cancer. However, because the symptoms are always present, patients need to develop coping skills to deal with them.
Some irritative voiding symptoms that look like IC may be symptoms of bladder cancer, even in patients who do not have the usual bladder cancer risk factors.
The cause of interstitial cystitis (IC) is unknown. Researchers are looking at many theories to understand the causes of IC and find the best treatments. Most people with IC find that certain foods make their symptoms worse.
Your bladder, kidneys, ureters and urethra make up your urinary system. When you have interstitial cystitis, the walls of your bladder become irritated and inflamed (shown right), compared with those of a normal bladder (shown top).
Dimethylsulfoxide — Dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) is a liquid medication that has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome (IC/BPS). DMSO is put into the bladder through a temporary catheter and is held in place for approximately 20 minutes, if possible.
Most patients need to continue treatment indefinitely or the symptoms return. Some patients have flare-ups of symptoms even while on treatment. In some patients the symptoms gradually improve and even disappear. Some patients do not respond to any IC/BPS therapy.
Interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome (IC/BPS) has several well-known comorbid psychiatric manifestations, including insomnia, anxiety, and depression. We hypothesized that somatoform disorder, which is a psychosomatic disease, can be used as a sensitive psychiatric phenotype of IC/BPS.
Symptoms are mostly the same in men and women. The most common symptom of bladder cancer is blood in the urine, known as hematuria. (It is usually not painful.)
One of the greatest challenges to diagnosing IC/BPS is the significant overlap in symptoms between IC/BPS and other conditions such as urinary tract infection, vulvodynia and endometriosis in women, and chronic prostatitis and chronic orchialgia in men.
Bladder cancer is often mistaken for a bladder infection because they share many of the same symptoms. Patients with either condition may experience increased urgency, frequency, and pain with urination or incontinence—the inability to hold in urine.
It may be seen as a symptom of post-menopausal bleeding, simple cystitis or a urinary tract infection. As a result, a bladder cancer diagnosis can be overlooked for a year or more.
Amitriptyline is the medication most commonly prescribed for interstitial cystitis. Elmiron is the only oral drug approved by the FDA specifically for interstitial cystitis. It improves the bladder lining, making it less leaky and therefore less inflamed and painful.
Risk factors
Gender: Women are more likely to have interstitial cystitis. Age: Most patients are older, with symptoms beginning as early as the 30s or 40s. Coloring: Those with red hair and fair skin are more likely to have it.
Hydroxyzine hydrochloride is an antihistamine that is used for treating allergic and inflammatory skin conditions – it can be used in the treatment of interstitial cystitis/painful bladder syndrome as it blocks the chemicals that can cause inflammation.
When other treatments have failed to provide adequate relief, doctors may recommend surgery. Surgical treatment of interstitial cystitis includes the removal of ulcers in the bladder and removal (and replacement) of part of the bladder.
Constipation is a common problem for everyone, particularly people with IC/BPS. Not only does it cause discomfort, for many IC/BPS patients it can increase IC/BPS symptoms such as urgency and frequency by causing additional pressure against the bladder.
Early prevalence research suggested that IC ranged from 1 out of every 100,000 to 5.1 out of every 100,000 in the general population; but updated epidemiologic research conducted in 2006 suggests that up to 12% of women may have early symptoms of IC.
Autoantibodies, such as those against nuclear and bladder epithelium antigens, have been found in patients with interstitial cystitis, but these are likely to be secondary to the disease. No data support a direct causal role of autoimmune reactivity in the pathogenesis of interstitial cystitis.