Scripps Clinic Receives Grant to Study Bladder Disease

Researchers at Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation have received a $1-million grant to try to discover the biochemical secrets of a mysterious disease that afflicts an estimated 450,000 Americans, most of them women.

The 3-year grant represents a significant new effort by the National Institutes of Health to find out the origins of the condition, interstitial cystitis, Scripps physicians said.

“It is our hope that we will be able to find out what pathways are involved, what factors are present in blood or urine which can give us some clue to what causes the inflammation,” said Dr. Eng M. Tan.

Interstitial cystitis is chronic inflammation of the bladder that is so debilitating and painful that women sometimes have to have their bladders removed, said Dr. Ruben Gittes, co-principal investigator with Tan on the project. The bladder becomes so sensitive that victims have to urinate as many as 60 times a day.

But, because it is so mysterious, interstitial cystitis often goes undiagnosed, and sometimes sufferers--mostly middle-aged women--get sent instead to psychiatrists, Gittes said.

Scripps doctors will be looking at interstitial cystitis as a potential autoimmune disease, one in which a defect in the body’s own immune system causes the inflammation, Gittes said.

If, over the next three years, those molecular mechanisms can be understood, it would help doctors find better treatments, Tan said.

The research project was announced at a press conference Friday at which special guests were members of the Interstitial Cystitis Assn. of America. This group, headquartered in San Diego, in 1984 launched a grass-roots effort to persuade Scripps Clinic to study the condition.

The group also lobbied Congress and health officials for funding.

The association argues that the lack of federal research on the disease is a prime example of the disparity between spending on “men’s” diseases and “women’s.” Although 10 times as many women as men develop urological problems every year, the group says, 71% of the federal urology research budget goes to men’s problems.

The association will be helping Scripps find patients willing to undergo blood and urine testing as part of the study; treatment would still be through the patients’ private physicians.

Scripps also is putting together a registry of interstitial cystitis patients for possible future use. Victims can be placed in the registry by calling Dr. James Koziol at Scripps.