By Amy Glover

Copyright huffingtonpost

Cystitis, a common urinary tract infection (UTI) is usually caused by bacteria entering the urethra.

Because women usually have shorter urethras, they’re more susceptible to the disease. The lifetime likelihood of developing a urinary tract infection (UTI) is thought to be 50-60% in women and 13-14% in men.

And while the UTI prevalence spikes among young women, researchers say that normally, the instances of cystitis rise with age.

But a new study published in the British Medical Journal Public Health found that a bout of acute cystitis may be linked to an increased risk of urogenital cancers, like bladder cancer and prostate cancer, in midlife.

What did the researchers find?

The study looked at data from a cohort study of all people living in Sweden from 1997 to the end of 2018. That involved 1,668,371 men and 1,889,211 women.

In the course of the study, researchers found that a bout of acute (sudden, non-chronic) cystitis may “precede urogenital cancers in men and women aged ≥50 years”.

The infection was seen among almost 9.5% of all those diagnosed with cancer during the approximately 15-year study period.

Risks seemed highest within three months of infection, which the researchers think might mean the UTI could be a precursor to urogenital cancers.

But the elevated likelihood of unrogenital cancers persisted for several years after an acute infection.

The risk of prostate cancer within three months of infection was seven times higher in those who had had the infection than it was in those who hadn’t.

For women, the risk of developing gynaecological cancers like endometrial cancer was between 4 and 8 times higher within three months of developing acute cystitis.

The risk of bladder cancer was 3.5 times higher in men and more than three times higher in women who had had cystitis during the monitoring period.

Men seemed to be more at risk in this study.

Why might cystitis affect cancer risk?

This study is only observational, meaning it cannot prove that UTI definitely causes or is a symptom of urogenital cancers.

But per the researchers, “The present study adds to the accumulating evidence of infections as markers of increased cancer risk.

“For clinicians, the findings indicate that acute cystitis could be a clinical marker for urogenital cancer (at least when no other cause is obvious), and particularly for occult urogenital cancer, as the risks for cancers were highest within three months of cystitis diagnosis.”

They added: “It is plausible that urogenital cancer, and perhaps even pre-cancerous changes in the urogenital organs, might increase the risk of cystitis because of compromised urinary tract and host defence”.