Chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome in adolescents compared with that in young adults

PURPOSE: Chronic prostatitis (CP)/chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CPPS) has been studied mainly in adults; reports in adolescents are rare. We compared the clinical characteristics of adolescent CP/CPPS patients with those of young adults. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed 20 adolescents with CP/CPPS aged <20 years who visited our outpatient department from August 2005 to April 2012. The control group comprised 120 young adult CP/CPPS patients. A complete medical history, physical examination, the national institute of health-chronic prostatitis symptoms index (NIH-CPSI) questionnaire, urinalysis, expressed prostatic secretion (EPS) or semen analysis, transrectal prostate ultrasonography, and prostate-specific antigen (PSA) were performed. Based on the EPS or semen analysis, patients were divided into category III-A or III-B. RESULTS: The mean age was 16.5±2.0 and 32.8±5.0 years in the adolescent and control groups, respectively. A sexual activity history was seen in 2 patients; 9 and 11 patients were in category III-A and III-B, respectively. The PSA was 0.65±0.39 and 1.22±0.48 ng/mL in the adolescent and control groups, respectively. The prostate size was 12.4±4.4 and 21.0±4.9 g in the adolescent and control groups, respectively. The NIH-CPSI scores in the adolescent group were 9.2±5.2, 5.5±3.5, 7.5±3.2, and 22.2±8.1 for pain, voiding, quality of life (QoL) domains, and total scores, respectively. The adolescent group showed a tendency to exhibit high voiding symptom scores. CONCLUSIONS: CPPS has an equally severe impact on QoL in adults and adolescents. Apart from high voiding symptom scores in adolescents, no difference was found in terms of urologic clinical parameters.