Prostatitis: US perspective

The diagnosis and management of prostatitis syndromes is a challenge to the clinician. Careful history and examination of the prostate fluid and quantitative segmented bacteriologic cultures will lead to proper categorization into the recognized forms of the prostatitis syndrome. Antimicrobial therapy is effective in the majority of men with acute and chronic bacterial prostatitis (CBP). Fluoroquinolone agents appear to have an increasingly important role in this regard, although a randomized, prospective, double-blind study is still lacking. Alpha-1-selective blocking agents may relieve symptomatology of chronic pelvis pain syndrome (CPPS). Other non-prostatic sources of voiding symptoms should be sought and ruled out, especially malignancy or inflammatory disorders. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.