Hello and welcome to the Zero to Finals podcast.

My name is Tom and in this episode I'm going to be talking to you about interstitial cystitis.

And you can find written notes on this topic at zero tofinals.com slash interstitial cystitis

or in the urology section of the Zero definals surgery book so let's get straight into it

interstitial cystitis is a chronic condition causing inflammation in the bladder resulting in lower

urinary tract symptoms and superpubic pain it's also called bladder pain syndrome and hypersensitive bladder

syndrome. There's no simple explanation for the symptoms in interstitial cystitis and the pathophysiology

is likely a complex combination of various factors, including dysfunction of the blood vessels,

nerves, immune system and the epithelium of the bladder.

Interstitial cystitis is much more common in women than in men. It can have a significant

impact on the quality of life and mental health. Let's start by talking about the presentation.

The symptoms are similar to a lower urinary tract

infection, however they're more persistent. The typical presentation is with more than six weeks

of superpubic pain, worse with a full bladder and often relieved by emptying the bladder,

frequency of urination, urgency of urination,

and the symptoms may be worse during menstruation.

Let's just talk about the investigations.

Other causes of the symptoms need to be excluded first, with urinalysis to test for urinary tract infections, swabs for sexually

transmitted infections, cystoscopy for bladder cancer and a prostate examination for

prostititis, prostate hypertrophy or prostate cancer.

HANA lesions, which can be seen during a cystoscopy, which is a camera into the bladder,

are a finding in 5 to 20% of patients with interstitial cystitis.

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