University of Iowa researchers are ready to find the causes of interstitial cystitis, thanks to a five-year, $4.8 million grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health. The grant is the largest ever received by the UI Department of Urology.

Interstitial cystitis is a painful bladder condition that causes excessively frequent urination and associated pain. An estimated 1.3 million Americans have the condition, more than one million of them women, according to an NIH report published in 2007.

"Some people with interstitial cystitis can't work because their symptoms are so severe. The condition has been difficult to treat because we don't know the causes," said the grant's principal investigator Karl Kreder, MD, professor of urology at the UI Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine.

"This NIH grant will allow us to explore inflammatory factors in the bladder and, as some recent evidence suggests, whether interstitial cystitis is a total body condition," said Kreder, who also is director of urodynamics, female and reconstructive urology in the Department of Urology at UI Hospitals and Clinics.

The funding makes the UI a Discovery Site for the NIH's Multidisciplinary Approach to the Study of Chronic Pelvic Pain Research Network. In particular, the UI researchers will explore the roles of the pituitary gland and sympathetic nervous system in the inflammatory process.

Kreder said the project involves five different, but interrelated, projects and will draw on the UI's Institute for Clinical and Translational Science.

• Susan Lutgendorf, PhD, professor of psychology in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, will examine the hypothalamic pituitary-adrenal axis, which helps regulate temperature, the immune system, mood, sexuality, and energy, as well as reactions to stress and injury.
• Satish Rao, MD, PhD, UI professor of internal medicine, will examine brain pathways that may govern painful syndromes.
• Catherine Bradley, MD, UI associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology, will focus on the epidemiology of interstitial cystitis and categorize it by pain mapping.
• Yi Luo, PhD, UI assistant professor of urology, will develop animal models that mimic the disorder.
• Michael O'Donnell, MD, UI professor of urology, will examine how certain bladder factors may predispose a person to interstitial cystitis.

For more information:

National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases

UI Department of Urology

Interstitial cystitis

Karl Kreder, MD

UI Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine