Prevalence Of Positive Potassium Sensitivity Test Which Is An Indicator Of Bladder Epithelial Permeability Dysfunction In A Fixed Group Of Women

UroToday - Intravesical Potassium Chloride Screening Positive In 32.8% of Female Turkish Textile Workers


How many unselected women in a population would have a BPS/IC if one considers a positive KCl test as a definitive standard? Six years ago Parsons answered this question for an American population1, determining that 74% of women with a pelvic pain, frequency, urgency scale (PUF) of 10-14 will have a positive potassium test. Based on PUF scores in medical students attending his lectures in San Diego, he reported a prevalence of possible interstitial cystitis in the young adult female population of up to 22%.


Sahinkanat and colleagues in Kahraman Maras, Turkey gave the PUF questionnaire to all female workers in two textile factories, and then took volunteers from groups with "positive" and "negative" PUF scores and administered Parson's standard intravesical potassium test. In this study, the results were even more startling. Over 38% of female textile workers had a positive PUF score, in this case defined as >7. The rate of positive potassium sensitivity testing (PST) in this group was 86.2%. In the group with a PUF less than 7, positive PST testing occurred in 9.1%. The authors estimate that 32.8% of the women in Turkey would have a positive potassium sensitivity test based on their data. Parsons, using similar parameters in unselected female medical students, calculated 30.6% had probable interstitial cystitis2.


The values calculated on the basis of the PUF questionnaire and potassium sensitivity testing for the prevalence of BPS/IC are 100 times those of recent population based studies using the O'Leary-Sant Interstitial Cystitis Symptom Score3, 4 The results certainly seem to lack a certain degree of face validity to this reviewer, yet are very provocative. Just what the PUF scale and potassium sensitivity test are identifying remains to be fully elucidated.


Tayfun Sahinkanata, Alanur G??venb, Hasan Ekerbicerc, Murat Arald


Reference List



(1) Parsons CL, Dell J, Stanford EJ et al. Increased prevalence of interstitial cystitis: previously unrecognized urologic and gynecologic cases identified using a new symptom questionnaire and intravesical potassium sensitivity. Urology 2002 October;60(4):573-8.



(2) Parsons CL, Tatsis V. Prevalence of interstitial cystitis in young women. Urology 2004 November;64(5):866-70.



(3) Leppilahti M, Sairanen J, Tammela TL, Aaltomaa S, Lehtoranta K, Auvinen A. Prevalence of clinically confirmed interstitial cystitis in women: a population based study in Finland. J Urol 2005 August;174(2):581-3.



(4) Temml C, Wehrberger C, Riedl C, Ponholzer A, Marszalek M, Madersbacher S. Prevalence and correlates for interstitial cystitis symptoms in women participating in a health screening project. Eur Urol 2007 March;51(3):803-8.


Urol Int 2008;80:52-56 Epub

doi: 10.1159/000111730


Reported by UroToday Contributing Editor Philip M. Hanno, MD, MPH Professor of Urology Division of Urology, Department of Surgery Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania Medical Director Department of Clinical Effectiveness and Quality Improvement University of Pennsylvania Health System Philadelphia, PA


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