Chronic prostatitis and biofilm

Nowadays, inflammatory prostatic diseases represent one of the main social and economic problems that affect male gender in our country. The disease's prevalence is estimated at 11-14% in European countries, and males aged between 20 and 50 years are the most affected subjects. Bacterial prostatitis is documented at a very low prevalence (7-13% of prostatitis overall considered) due to either reduced utilization of viral and bacteriological tests (Meares test, urethral swab, bacterial and viral PCR) or to the possibility that individual patients show a scarce expression of bacterial disease in biological fluids, because of intraglandular biofilm presence, with subsequent spreading of the sole plankton microrganisms. Actually, the presence of a biofilm may possibly represent the reason for difficult diagnoses and ineffective antibacterial treatments.