The words "confusable disease" and "associated disease" are always used in connection with another disease, in our situation in connection with BPS/IC.

For BPS/IC, a confusable disease is a disease which may show similar symptoms and/or signs to those of BPS/IC. In general, such a confusable disease needs to be excluded as the main cause of the symptoms and/or signs before a diagnosis of BPS/IC can be made. In practice, the situation may be more complex as the presence of a confusable disease does not necessarily exclude the presence of BPS/IC as well. If both a confusable disease and BPS/IC are present, it is clear that for individual diagnoses of patients and for epidemiological studies, the presence of a confusable disease should not exclude a diagnosis of BPS/IC. For many scientific studies, on the other hand, e.g. for studies on the effect of a particular treatment, only patients with BPS/IC without an additional confusable disease should be accepted as the confusable disease may severely interfere with outcome parameters of such a study.

BPS/IC has several associated diseases. Associated diseases are diseases with a higher prevalence among patients with BPS/IC than in the general population. This does not necessarily imply a causal relationship between BPS/IC and the associated disease. The practical consequence of associated diseases is that medical professionals should know these associations and should have a high index of suspicion for the associated diseases.

• slide with all relevant confusable diseases (ESSIC consensus 2005-2006)

• literature using the words "confusable disease"

• confusable diseases misdiagnosed as interstitial cystitis

  malignancies 

  other bladder conditions  

• carcinoma

• overactive bladder

• carcinoma in situ

• bladder neck obstruction

• cervical, uterine and ovarian cancer

• neurogenic outlet obstruction

• prostate cancer

• bladder stone and lower ureteric stone

• incomplete bladder emptying (retention)

  urinary tract infections  

  gynaecological conditions  

• intestinal bacteria

• endometriosis

• Mycobacterium tuberculosis

• vaginal candidiasis

• Chlamydia trachomatis

• cervical, uterine and ovarian cancer

• Ureaplasma urealyticum

• Mycoplasma hominis

  male diseases  

• Mycoplasma genitalium

• Corynebacterium urealyticum

• prostate cancer

• Candida species

• benign prostate obstruction

• Herpes simplex

• chronic non-bacterial prostatitis

• Human Papilloma Virus

• chronic bacterial prostatitis

  cystitis: other causes  

  various  

• drug-induced cystitis

• pudendal nerve entrapment

• radiation-induced cystitis

• pelvic floor muscle related pain

• eosinophilic cystitis

• various confusable disease