However, antibiotics often do not cure the infection. Nonbacterial prostatitis is the most common form of the disease. It is believed to occur eight times more often than bacterial prostatitis. Unfortunately, it is also the least understood. Nonbacterial prostatitis is frequently a chronic, painful condition found in men of any age.
Symptoms go away and then return without warning.
Urine and fluids from the prostate show no evidence of a known infecting organism, but semen and other fluids from the prostate contain cells that the body usually produces to fight infection. Doctors often treat nonbacterial prostatitis with antibiotics and drugs that relax the muscles of the prostate gland, but these treatments have not been proven to work and, in fact, often fail. Prostatodynia is similar to nonbacterial prostatitis with regard to symptoms, age of patients, and ineffectiveness of treatment. However, there are no objective findings, such as the presence of infection-fighting cells, in prostatodynia. This information is provided by the National Kidney and Urologic Diseases Information Clearinghouse , a service of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases .