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Medical Author:

Charles Patrick Davis, MD, PhD

Charles Patrick Davis, MD, PhD

Dr. Charles "Pat" Davis, MD, PhD, is a board certified Emergency Medicine doctor who currently practices as a consultant and staff member for hospitals. He has a PhD in Microbiology (UT at Austin), and the MD (Univ. Texas Medical Branch, Galveston). He is a Clinical Professor (retired) in the Division of Emergency Medicine, UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, and has been the Chief of Emergency Medicine at UT Medical Branch and at UTHSCSA with over 250 publications.

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Medical Editor:

Jerry R. Balentine, DO, FACEP

Jerry R. Balentine, DO, FACEP

Dr. Balentine received his undergraduate degree from McDaniel College in Westminster, Maryland. He attended medical school at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine graduating in1983. He completed his internship at St. Joseph's Hospital in Philadelphia and his Emergency Medicine residency at Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center in the Bronx, where he served as chief resident.

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Bacterial infections cause only about 5%-10% of cases of prostatitis. In the other 90%-95%, due to chronic pelvic pain syndrome or asymptomatic inflammatory prostatitis described above, the cause is not known. Prostate infectious agents are as follows for both acute and chronic infectious prostatitis:

• Escherichia coli (E coli) is the bacterium most often the cause of prostate infections and approximately 80% of the bacterial pathogens are gram-negative organisms (for example, Escherichia coli, Enterobacter, Serratia, Pseudomonas, Enterococcus, and Proteus species).
• Sexually transmitted disease-causing organisms also may cause infectious prostatitis especially in sexually active men under 35 years of age; the most usually identified organisms are Chlamydia, Neisseria, Trichomonas, and Ureaplasma.
• Rarely staphylococcal and streptococcal organisms have been found to be the cause, and infrequently different organisms such as fungi, genital viruses, and parasites have been implicated.
• The infectious agent (usually bacteria) may invade the prostate in two main ways.
  • The bacteria from a previous urethral infection move through prostatic ducts into the prostate (occasionally termed retrograde infection).
  • Movement of infected urine into the glandular prostate tissue can infect via ejaculatory ducts (occasionally termed antegrade infection).

Infectious organisms, as previously stated, cause two of the four main types of prostatitis; acute infectious prostatitis and chronic infectious prostatitis.

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