Interstitial Cystitis (IC) or """"""""the painful bladder syndrome"""""""" is fundamentally a disease that causes morbidity through the urinary symptoms with which it is associated. It's etiology, epidemiology, and natural history are poorly understood. Recognition of the symptom complex of urinary frequency, urgency, suprapubic, pelvic or perineal pain is the first and most critical step in the diagnosis and management of this condition. A scientific methodology exists to quantify this illness experience from a patient's perspective in an accurate and precise way. This has utility in both research and clinical management since the main goal of therapy is the eradication of symptoms. The proposed project is a validation study of a symptom index of IC, using this methodology in a prospective longitudinal design. The IC symptom index includes comprehensive evaluation of health status since this disease has significant impact on patients' quality of life. The resulting IC symptom index will be an important element in future clinical trials of therapeutic interventions in IC since symptoms and functional status are principle dependent variables of such studies. In addition it has utility for clinicians who treat these patients and for studies of the natural history of the disease such as the NIDDK IC Data Base Project. The proposed study personnel, patient population and institutional resources are ideal to perform this study. The principal investigator is a urologist with special training in outcomes research. Co-investigators bring extensive knowledge of IC, and of the evaluative sciences.
| O'Leary, M P; Sant, G R; Fowler Jr, F J et al. (1997) The interstitial cystitis symptom index and problem index. Urology 49:58-63 |
