Cross-sectional study on the etiological diagnosis of the patients with chronic prostatitis-like symptoms by application of the urine-prostate-semen test.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

The prostatic secretion was considered to be the most important and even only specimen in diagnosis and differential diagnosis of chronic prostatitis like symptoms, but little attention has been paid to other genital organ infections. A urine-prostate-semen test (U-EPS-S test) was used to investigate the microbial flora of internal genital organs in patients with chronic prostatitis-like symptoms and their influence on the diagnosis and treatment of the patients.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

We randomly selected the patients with chronic prostatitis-like symptoms for this study and used a U-EPS-S test to collect urine, prostatic secretion, and semen specimens. The specimens were inoculated respectively into a suitable culture medium for bacteriological/fungal detection, and the number and distribution of colonies in each isolation culture were observed before and after the therapy.

RESULTS

All of the specimens from the internal genital organs of these patients were shown as microbe-positive isolation and the infection rate was 100%. Of these, prostatic secretion with microbe-positive isolation was obtained in 66 cases (33%), semen with microbe-positive isolation was obtained in 34 cases (17%), and both prostatic secretion and semen with microbe-positive isolation were obtained in 100 cases (50%). In the isolates, Gram-positive microbes were shown as the most common pathogens, accounting for 91.1%. In 200 patients, 95 patients were infected with one microbial species infection, of them 36 were prostatic secretion positive-isolation (18%), 20 were semen sample positive-isolation (10%), and 39 were positive-isolation both prostatic secretion and semen samples (19.5%); 104 patients were infected with two microbial species, of them 30 were prostatic secretion positive-isolation (15%), 14 were semen sample positive-isolation (7%), and 60 were positive-isolation both prostatic secretion and semen samples (30%); one patient was infected with three microbial species and them were isolated from the semen sample (0.5%). In the patients with chronic prostatitis-like symptoms, the multiple microbial infection (MMI) was accounted for 53.5%, and the multiorgan infection (MOI) was accounted for 67%.

CONCLUSIONS

The U-EPS-S test is not only helpful to accurately identify the pathogens and contaminants in the culture isolates, but also the diagnosis and differential diagnosis and also evaluation of the treatment efficacy of the infection in different genital organs. In the patients with chronic prostatitis symptoms, Gram-positive microbes were the most common causative agents, and MMI and MOI caused by resistant strains of different microbial species have a high incidence.