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Is interstitial cystitis an infectious disease?

Interstitial cystitis (IC) is manifest by years of urinary frequency, urgency, and bladder pain and on cystoscopy, is diagnosed by petechial hemorrhages or ulcers. The etiology is unknown; the prominent theories are that IC is an autoimmune disease or is linked to increased permeability of the bladder mucosa. Although sought, no infectious agent has ever been identified. The disease has many characteristics of a chronic infection and the author's opinion is that an infectious disease has not been properly ruled out. To do so would require culture of bladder epithelium (not just urine) using special culture and non-culture techniques such as polymerase chain reaction. Infection can easily be integrated into the autoimmune and permeability theories of IC pathogenesis. A possible analogue for this disease is chronic gastritis in which Helicobacter pylori has been identified as an etiological agent.