Interstitial Cystitis/ Painful Bladder Syndrome (IC/PBS), a chronic inflammatory condition of the bladder wall, is a devastating disease that, without adequate therapy, leads to a state of unremitting pain and urinary frequency up to 70 times a day.

The principal symptoms are urgency, frequency (i.e. the frequent desire to void at inadequate bladder filling volumes), and pain in the bladder region. Absence of any infection, as demonstrated by sterile cultures, and absence of other causes for these symptoms (malignancies, stones, gynaecologic diseases, etc.) are mandatory for the diagnosis of IC. The multitude and diversity of symptoms that are not exclusively localized in the urinary tract and may individually vary in a broad range, suggests that IC is more a syndrome rather than a well defined disease.

Since symptomatology is not well represented by the term “interstitial cystitis”, many doctors do not consider IC as the cause of their patients’ problems; thus, the International Continence Society recently introduced the term “painful bladder syndrome” to better relate the clinical picture.

IUGA 38th Annual Meeting