HELLENIC UROLOGY VOLUME 28 | ISSUE 2 32 Green therapies for a grey disease, p. 32-43 Introduction Chronic nonbacterial prostatitis or chronic prosta- titis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CP/CPPS) is considered the most common form of prostatitis, ac- counting for almost 90% of all the prostatitis cases. It can afect men of all ages. It manifests as a combi- nation of mild prostatism (irritant or obstructive symptoms) and pain in the prostate and in various oth- er locations such as the perineum, the scrotum, testicles, penis or even the bladder. The intensity of discomfort may be initially mild and it worsening gradually over a period of time (usually longer than three months). Up to 50% of the patients experience sexual dysfunction. The symptoms sometimes persist and sometimes disappear. Although signs of inlammation are present, patients have no bacteria in their urine and prostatic secretion 1 . Ac- tually no causative agent has been implicated with certainty therefore, treatment is basically symptomatic. For the above reasons CP/CPPS re- mains a grey disease. Current pharmacotherapy of CP/CPPS is multidi- REVIEW Green therapies for a grey disease Konstantinos Stamatiou Department of Urology, Tzaneio General Hospital, Piraeus Greece Corresponding author: Dr. Stamatiou Konstantinos, 2 Salepoula str., 18536 Piraeus, Greece, Tel:+302104592311, E - mail: stamatiouk@gmail.com Key words chronic nonbacterial prostatitis; chronic pelvic pain syndrome; lower urinary tract symptoms; pharmacotherapy; phytotherapeutic drugs Phytotherapeutic agents are used for many years as an ad- junctive therapy of benign prostatic hypertrophy. The simi- larity of the symptoms of the lower urinary tract associated with chronic prostatitis with those caused by benign prostat- ic hypertrophy and the anecdotally observed eicacy of the phytotherapeutic agents in the improvement of pelvic pain justi ies their use in the treatment of chronic nonbacterial prostatitis. Many clinicians and researchers have investigat- ed the role of herbal medicinal products against the symp- toms of the lower urinary tract however a careful review of the reported studies showed that speciic studies for nonbac- terial prostatitis are limited. Even if in these studies the tar- get, the material and the methods varies, most support their usefulness. Despite the general belief that phytotherapeu- tic agents’ have a dual mechanism of action (both hormonal and anti-inlammatory) it seems that they actually exhibit a moderate anti-inlammatory efect the exact mechanism of which is not fully investigated. Abstract Stamatiou K. Green therapies for a grey disease. Hellenic Urology 2016, 28 (2): 32-43 Citation