Chronic Prostatitis/chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome - Cause - Nerves, Stress and Hormones

Nerves, Stress and Hormones

The symptoms of CP/CPPS appear to result from an interplay between psychological factors and dysfunction in the immune, neurological and endocrine systems.

Theories behind the disease include stress-driven hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis dysfunction and adrenocortical hormone (endocrine) abnormalities, neurogenic inflammation, and myofascial pain syndrome. In the latter two categories, dysregulation of the local nervous system due to past trauma, infection or an anxious disposition and chronic albeit unconscious pelvic tensing lead to inflammation that is mediated by substances released by nerve cells (such as substance P). The prostate (and other areas of the genitourinary tract: bladder, urethra, testicles) can become inflamed by the action of the chronically activated pelvic nerves on the mast cells at the end of the nerve pathways. Similar stress-induced genitourinary inflammation has been shown experimentally in other mammals. However, there is no correlation between inflammation on histological examination of the prostate and the National Institutes of Health Chronic Prostatitis Symptom Index.

The bacterial infection theory that for so long had held sway in this field was shown to be unimportant in a 2003 study from the University of Washington team led by Dr Lee and Professor Richard Berger. The study found that one third of both normal men and patients had equal counts of similar bacteria colonizing their prostates. This view was endorsed by Dr Anthony Schaeffer, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Urology at Northwestern University, in a 2003 editorial of The Journal of Urology, in which he stated that "...these data suggest that bacteria do not have a significant role in the development of the chronic pelvic pain syndrome", and a year later with his colleagues he published studies showing that antibiotics are essentially useless for CP/CPPS. Since the publication of these studies, the research focus has shifted from infection to neuromuscular, behavioral, psychological, and genetic etiologies for UCPPS (CP/CPPS and IC/PBS), where the interplay between the lower urinary tract and other physiological systems is stressed. UCPPS is now studied as a systemic disorder. In support of this approach, a 2005 study showed that stress is correlated to Cat III prostatitis.