Ludwig Boltzmann Cluster of Urology, Department of Urology, Medical University Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Med Microbiol Immunol. 2012 Feb;201(1):113-6. doi: 10.1007/s00430-011-0205-2. Epub 2011 Jun 10.
While Trichomonas vaginalis, a protozoan parasite, is a well-investigated pathogen in the female population, there is little awareness of its significance in the male uro-genital tract. The presence of T. vaginalis in the prostate gland has only been scarcely investigated and has never been attested in conditions other than clinical prostatitis. Still, by some authors, this organ is regarded as ecologic niche for T. vaginalis. Since normal prostate tissue of sufficient quality is hard to come by, we investigated samples from 86 patients (mean age 68.7 ± 7.6 years) suffering from benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), a medical condition currently ranked as noninfectious, but characterized by chronic inflammatory tissue infiltrates of unknown etiology. Applying two different PCR protocols and sequence analysis of the respective amplicons, we detected T. vaginalis DNA in 29/86 (34%) BPH tissue samples, whereas in only 2/86 (2.3%) cases T. vaginalis grew in culture. Detection of T. vaginalis DNA correlated significantly (P < 0.01) with elevated peripheral blood monocytic cell counts, appearing along with protozoan infections. Given the unexpected high prevalence of T. vaginalis in BPH tissue of a nonselected, elderly study population from Austria, further epidemiological studies have to confirm this finding. Potential interactions of T. vaginalis in its prostatic habitat may be investigated with respect to their possible contribution to the inflammatory pathogenesis of BPH, since inflammatory cytokines have been shown to sustain prostatic hyperplastic growth.
虽然阴道毛滴虫是一种原生动物寄生虫，在女性人群中已得到广泛研究，但人们对其在男性泌尿生殖系统中的重要性知之甚少。前列腺中存在阴道毛滴虫的情况仅被少量研究过，除前列腺炎外，从未在其他情况下得到证实。尽管如此，一些作者仍认为该器官是阴道毛滴虫的生态位。由于很难获得足够质量的正常前列腺组织，我们调查了 86 名患有良性前列腺增生症（BPH）的患者的样本（平均年龄 68.7 ± 7.6 岁），这种疾病目前被归类为非传染性疾病，但以慢性炎症组织浸润为特征，其病因不明。应用两种不同的 PCR 方案并对各自的扩增子进行序列分析，我们在 86 例 BPH 组织样本中的 29/86（34%）中检测到阴道毛滴虫 DNA，而在 86 例中仅 2/86（2.3%）的情况下阴道毛滴虫在培养中生长。阴道毛滴虫 DNA 的检测与外周血单核细胞计数的升高显著相关（P<0.01），且常与原生动物感染同时出现。鉴于在来自奥地利的非选择性、老年研究人群的 BPH 组织中阴道毛滴虫的高患病率出人意料，还需要进一步的流行病学研究来证实这一发现。可以研究阴道毛滴虫在其前列腺栖息地中的潜在相互作用，以了解其对 BPH 炎症发病机制的可能贡献，因为已经表明炎症细胞因子可维持前列腺增生。
