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The role of nutraceuticals and phytotherapy in the management of urinary tract infections: What we need to know?

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Zafer Tandogdu

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Abstract

© 2017, Edizioni Scripta Manent s.n.c. All rights reserved. Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs) are amongst the most common infectious diseases and carry a significant impact on patient quality of life and health care costs. Despite that, there is no well-established recommendation for a "standard" prophylactic antibiotic management to prevent UTI recurrences. The majority of patients undergoes long-term antibiotic treatment that severely impairs the normal microbiota and increases the risk of development of multidrug-resistant microorganisms. In this scenario, the use of phytotherapy to both alleviate symptoms related to UTI and decrease the rate of symptomatic recurrences is an attractive alternative. Several recently published papers report conflicting findings and cannot give confident recommendations for the everyday clinical practice. A new approach to the management of patients with recurrent UTI might be to use nutraceuticals or phytotherapy after an accurate assessment of the patient's risk factors. No single compound or mixture has been identified so far as the best preventive approach in patients with recurrent UTI. We reviewed our non-antibiotic approach to the management of recurrent UTI patients in order to clarify the evidence-base for the commonly used substances, understand their pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics in order to tailor the best way to improve patient's quality of life and reduce the rate of antibiotic resistance. Lack of a gold-standard recommendation and the risk of increasing antibiotic resistance is the reason why we need alternatives to antibiotics in the management of urinary tract infections (UTIs). A tailored approach according to bacterial characteristics and the patient risk factors profile is a promising option.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Cai T, Tamanini I, Kulchavenya E, Perepanova T, Koves B, Wagenlehner FME, Tandogdu Z, Bonkat G, Bartoletti R, Johansen TEB

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Archivio Italiano di Urologia e Andrologia

Year: 2017

Volume: 89

Issue: 1

Pages: 1-6

Online publication date: 31/03/2017

Acceptance date: 28/01/2017

Date deposited: 05/06/2017

ISSN (print): 1124-3562

ISSN (electronic): 2282-4197

Publisher: Edizioni Scripta Manent s.n.c.

URL: https://doi.org/10.4081/aiua.2017.1.1

DOI: 10.4081/aiua.2017.1.1

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