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NIDDK Launches Effort to Advance Study of Urologic Chronic Pelvic Pain Disorders

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Brief Description:

Urologic pelvic pain disorders such as interstitial cystitis and chronic prostatis have been assumed to be bladder and prostate problems. However, no other causes have been identified and there is no uniformly effective treatment for either disorder.

Transcript:

Akinso: Urologic pelvic pain disorders such as interstitial cystitis and chronic prostatis have been assumed to be bladder and prostate problems. However, no other causes have been identified and there is no uniformly effective treatment for either disorder. That's why the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases will launch a new research network, which will help conduct collaborative studies of urologic chronic pelvic pain disorders by looking for clues outside the bladder and prostate. Dr. Leroy Nyberg, NIDDK's Director of Urology Programs at the Division of Kidney, Urologic and Hematologic Diseases, talks about how this research network came to pass.

Nyberg: What makes this unique is that before these two disorders interstitial cystitis and chronic prostatis have been studied mainly by urologists. We at the NIH have been studying them for years and really have not been able to get a foothold on what causes them or what is the most effective way to treat them. So we have decided that we have to look outside of the specialty of urology and enlist other investigators to look at these diseases as well.

Akinso: The research network, Multidisciplinary Approach to the Study of Chronic Pelvic Pain, known by the acronym MAPP, requires investigators to conduct highly collaborative research of the most common urologic pelvic pain syndromes from a broadened systemic perspective. Dr. Nyberg says MAPP will help address many persistent questions about urologic chronic pain disorders.

Nyberg: The MAPP research is to find the underline basic causes of this disorder-by taking samples of bladder and prostate and finding it, whether we can find it in the blood as some sort of an abnormal substance which is found in the blood or in the urine.

Akinso: Dr. Nyberg is optimistic about what this program can lead to down the road.

Nyberg: Ideally we would like to say that we can find the cause and we can prevent these disorders, the chronic pelvic pain disorders, and we can effectively treat them, but basically we would hope that first it leads to a greater understanding of what are some of the causes of the disorder. Once we find the cause or what changes occur in the body we can start to target medications and effective therapy.

Akinso: Recent studies have shown that interstitial cystitis and chronic prostatis are frequently associated with other chronic pain disorders such as chronic fatigue syndrome, and irritable bowel syndrome. For more information on MAPP, visit www.niddk.nih.gov. This is Wally Akinso at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland.

Date: 9/26/2008

Reporter: Wally Akinso

Sound Bite: Dr. Leroy Nyberg

Topic: urologic chronic pelvic pain

Institute(s):
NIDDK

This page was last reviewed on October 2, 2008 .
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