Efficacy of intravesical cocktail therapy with or without dimethyl sulphoxide in interstitial cystitis

INTRODUCTION: Interstitial cystitis (IC) is a chronic bladder inflammation with unknown etiologies that impairs the quality of life of patients. We aimed to investigate the efficacy of dimethyl sulphoxide (DMSO) use in the cocktail therapy in IC patients. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Patients treated with intravesical cocktail therapy which contained a mixture of 10 mL of bupivacaine, 1 mL of heparin, and 9 mL of sodium bicarbonate, was introduced to Group 1, and, 25 mL of DMSO was added to this cocktail and introduced to Group 2. Statistical analyses between groups were assessed by Turkish validated O’Leary Sant score composed of IC Symptom Index (ICSI) and IC Problem Index (ICPI), visual analog scale (VAS) score, and short form-36 (SF-36) questionnaire in the baseline versus post-instillation week 6, month 6, and month 12, comparatively. RESULTS: A total of 62 patients (58 women and 4 men) with a median age of 52 (28–76) years were included. Baseline versus post-instillation 6(th) week of ICSI and ICPI scores were 15 ±3.4 vs 7.4 ±2.9 and 12.6 ±2.8 vs 6.1 ±2.7, respectively (p <0.001 and <0.001, respectively). VAS scores of Group 2 were statistically significantly lower than that of Group 1 in the post-instillation month 6 (p = 0.03) whereas, the baseline of VAS scores were similar. CONCLUSIONS: Intravesical cocktail therapy is an effective and reliable treatment method and can be safely applied with or without DMSO. Adding DMSO to cocktail therapy provides a further decrease in VAS score in the post-instillation month 6.