Current approaches to the diagnosis of acute cystitis and to evaluation of treatment efficiency

Introduction. Lower urinary tract infections are common infectious diseases. Although there are international valid questionnaires for evaluating a number of urological diseases (prostatitis, BPH, erectile dysfunction), a unified questionnaire for cystitis was absent until recently. Our aim was to evaluate the efficiency and ease of use of the Acute Cystitis Symptom Score (ACSS) in the daily urological practice. Materials and methods. A total of 47 women aged 24 to 46 years with typical complaints for acute cystitis were included into multicenter open, non-comparative prospective population-based study. All of them completed the ACSS questionnaire during the first consultation and after 7-10 days at the follow-up visit. The diagnosis of acute cystitis was valid with a total score of 6 or more points. Clinical and laboratory studies were used to diagnose the cystitis. Results. Self-completion of the questionnaire by the patient and its analysis by the physician took about four minutes. The average baseline score for the «typical» domain was 9.8±1.3, while a score for the differential diagnostic domain was 1.2±0.4. The mean baseline quality of life was 6.4±0.8 points. The total score averaged 17.4±1.9. All 47 patients had leukocyturia, and 12 (25.5%) had hematuria. A microbiological study was done in 36 (76.7%) patients and revealed an increased concentration of uropathogens in all cases. Thus, acute cystitis diagnosed on the ACSS scale was confirmed, and 41 (87.2%) patients had acute uncomplicated cystitis, and in 6 cases (12.8%) various complications developed. Conclusion. The specificity of the ACSS questionnaire was 100%. The questionnaire can be considered as a necessary tool for studies on LUTS in order to standardize obtained data and ensure their comparability.

urogenital infections, questionnaires, scales, acute cystitis, lower urinary tract infections, chronic cystitis