ABSTRACT
Epidemiology studies of painful bladder syndrome/interstitial cystitis (IC), now commonly referred to as bladder pain syndrome (BPS)/IC, are hampered bymany problems (1). The lack of an accepteddefinition, the absence of a validateddiagnosticmarker, andquestions regarding the etiology and pathophysiology make much of the literature difficult to interpret. This is most apparent when one looks at the variation in incidence reports. These range from 1.2 per 100,000 population and 4.5 per 100,000 females in Japan (2), to a questionnaire-based study that suggests a figure in American women of 20,000 per 100,000 (3). There is probably a high rate of misdiagnosis (4).
