Is acute cystitis dangerous?

The article was professionally consulted by Doctor Department of General Surgery and Anesthesia, Vinmec Hai Phong International General Hospital.

Acute cystitis can occur at any age, but is more common in older people. The disease, if not detected and treated promptly, will lead to chronic cystitis and leave many bad consequences. Please refer to the article below to know more about the causes, treatment and prevention of acute cystitis.

Acute cystitis is an acute infection of the bladder. The clinical manifestation of the disease is a clear bladder syndrome with symptoms such as painful urination, possibly blood in the urine, purulent urine at the end of the yard. Urinalysis will show white blood cells and bacteria in the urine.
Acute cystitis is more common in women than men with a female/male ratio of 9/1. The diagnosis and treatment of the disease depends on the clinical form that the patient has, which is common acute cystitis or complicated acute cystitis.

Acute cystitis is caused by bacteria, along with favorable factors, creating conditions for the disease to develop.
Types of bacteria that often cause disease
Causes of acute cystitis are usually caused by gram (-) bacteria, accounting for 90%, the remaining 10% are caused by gram (+) bacteria. In which, the following bacteria are most common:
Escherichia coli: accounting for about 70 - 80%. Bacteria Proteus mirabilis: accounts for about 10-15%. Klebsiella bacteria: 5 - 10%. Staphylococcus saprophyticus: about 5 - 10% Pseudomonas aeruginosa: 1-2 %. Staphylococcus aureus bacteria: 1-2%.

Predisposing factors
Benign enlargement or prostate tumor . The patient has stones or a bladder tumor. Patient has urethral stricture or foreskin stenosis. Patient has diabetes. Pregnant women. The patient is having a bladder drainage catheter or having bladder, urethral...

Clinical symptoms When suffering from acute cystitis, the patient will have the following common symptoms:
The patient has clear bladder syndrome, including symptoms of dysuria, hematuria, and urine that contains urine. pus at the end of the yard. Patients may experience mild pain in the upper pubic region when the bladder is distended. However, there are cases where the patient has a lot of pain, even pain spreads to the urethra, vulva (for women). The pain usually subsides or goes away after urinating. Patients always feel the need to urinate and urinate many times a day, especially at night, even some patients have urinary incontinence or urinary incontinence. Sometimes the symptoms are atypical. The patient may only experience a burning sensation when urinating or urinating. Usually, patients with acute cystitis have no fever, or only mild fever below 38 degrees Celsius. Subclinical Urinalysis shows: There are white blood cells in the urine: Urine leukocytes are positive from (++) to (+++) (≥ 104 WBC/ml). However, in cases when microscopy shows many degenerate polymorphonuclear leukocytes in fresh urine samples, there is no need to count white blood cells anymore. Urinary nitrite (+). Bacteriuria ≥ 105 bacteria/ml with urine culture. However, urine culture should be done only when the patient fails to respond to conventional therapy or the disease recurs. There is no protein in the urine, except in cases where the patient has hematuria or gross pyuria (blood or pus in the urine can be seen with the naked eye). Ultrasound: on the ultrasound image of the abdomen, the bladder wall can be seen as thicker than normal. Blood test: This test is not usually needed. The number of white blood cells in the blood is usually not high.

Acute cystitis causes many harms to patients such as:
First, it makes patients worried, sad, can even make patients panic, affecting health in general and affect the patient's daily life. Especially for newly married men and women, or the elderly, especially when they have pain, burning and bloody urine. If the disease is not detected early or the patient does not go to the doctor because of fear, the disease will turn into chronic cystitis. At this time, the symptoms will appear persistently, causing a lot of trouble for the patient. If the disease is not completely treated, it can lead to inflammation upstream to the kidneys causing nephritis (pyelonephritis) and worst, kidney failure. Acute cystitis can also cause sepsis. This is a very dangerous condition if not detected early. Thus, it can be seen that acute cystitis will be very dangerous if not detected and treated promptly.

For common acute cystitis:
Usually has a good prognosis, the disease usually completely resolves after a short course of appropriate antibiotics. However, bacteria still have the ability to travel upstream to the ureters, renal pelvis and kidneys, causing pyelonephritis, acute nephritis, which is a medical emergency. If the disease recurs 4 or more times in 1 year, prophylaxis is required. When the patient has a long-lasting inflammation or the disease or recurrence will leave many fibrous scars, it will be diagnosed as chronic cystitis. For complicated acute cystitis with favorable factors, the prognosis will be more conservative. Along with the use of antibiotics against infections, predisposing treatment should be considered if possible. At the same time, the course of antibiotic use in this case must also last for more days.
During the treatment, the patient needs to drink enough water, the urine output must be at least 1.5l/24h. At the same time, the patient should not hold urine for more than 6 hours. This is an important factor for effective treatment as well as prevention of infection.
When there are symptoms of the disease, the patient needs to go to the doctor right away, so that the specialist doctors can examine and assess the condition, find out the cause of the disease, then choose antibiotics as well as the treatment regimen. appropriate treatment. Absolutely do not arbitrarily buy medicine for treatment without a doctor's prescription. The disease will become dangerous if not detected, treated promptly as well as definitively treated.

According to the Document GUIDELINES FOR DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT OF SOME DISEASE OF KIND - URINARY - Ministry of Health