Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Causes
By Mayo Clinic staff
Your urinary system is composed of the kidneys, ureters, bladder and urethra. All play a role in removing waste from your body. Your kidneys — a pair of bean-shaped organs located toward the back of your upper abdomen — filter waste from your blood and adjust the body composition of many substances. Tubes called ureters carry urine from your kidneys to the bladder, where it's stored until it exits your body through the urethra.
Bacterial cystitis
UTIs typically occur when bacteria enter the urinary tract through the urethra and begin to multiply. The urinary system is designed to keep out such microscopic invaders. The bladder secretes a protective coating that prevents bacteria from attaching to its wall. Urine also has antibacterial properties that inhibit the growth of bacteria. However, certain factors increase the chances that bacteria will take hold and multiply into a full-blown infection.
Bacterial bladder infections may occur in women as a result of sexual intercourse. During sexual activity, bacteria may be introduced into the bladder through the urethra. But even sexually inactive girls and women are susceptible to lower urinary tract infections because the female genital area often harbors bacteria that can cause cystitis.
Most cases of cystitis are caused by Escherichia coli (E. coli), a species of bacteria commonly found in the genital area. A new strain of antibiotic-resistant E. coli may be the cause of increasingly hard-to-treat UTIs in women.
Main types of infections
The two main types of bacterial bladder infections are:
- Community-acquired bladder infections. These infections occur when people who aren't in a medical care facility, such as a hospital or nursing home, develop a bladder infection. This condition is common in women between the ages of 30 and 50, but it is rare in men of the same age. However, men older than 50 may be at risk of this type of infection because of prostate enlargement, a common condition that can block urine flow in older men.
- Hospital-acquired, or nosocomial (nos-o-KO-me-ul), bladder infections. These infections occur in people in a medical care facility, such as a hospital or nursing home. Most often they occur in those who have had a urinary catheter placed through the urethra and into the bladder to collect urine, a common practice before some surgical procedures, for some diagnostic tests, or as a means of urinary drainage for elderly people or people confined to bed.
Noninfectious cystitis
Although bacterial infections are the most common cause of cystitis, a number of other noninfectious factors may cause the bladder to become inflamed. Some examples:
- Interstitial cystitis. The cause of this chronic bladder inflammation, also called painful bladder syndrome, is unclear. Most cases are diagnosed in women. The condition can be difficult to diagnose and treat.
- Drug-induced cystitis. Certain medications, particularly the chemotherapy drugs cyclophosphamide and ifosfamide, can cause inflammation of your bladder as the broken-down substances of the drugs exit your body.
- Radiation cystitis. Radiation treatment of the pelvic area can cause inflammatory changes in bladder tissue.
- Foreign-body cystitis. Long-term use of a catheter can predispose you to bacterial infections and to tissue damage, both of which can cause inflammation.
- Chemical cystitis. Some people may be hypersensitive to chemicals contained in certain products, such as bubble bath, feminine hygiene sprays or spermicidal jellies, and may develop an allergic-type reaction within the bladder, causing inflammation.
- Cystitis associated with other conditions. Cystitis may sometimes occur as a complication of other disorders, such as gynecologic cancers, pelvic inflammatory disorders, endometriosis, Crohn's disease, diverticulitis, lupus and tuberculosis.
