[Chronic prostatitis and biofilm].
Nowadays, inflammatory prostatic diseases represent one of the main social and economic problems that affect male gender in our country. The disease's prevalence is estimated at 11-14% in European countries, and males aged between 20 and 50 years are the most affected subjects. Bacterial prostatitis is documented at a very low prevalence (7-13% of prostatitis overall considered) due to either reduced utilization of viral and bacteriological tests (Meares test, urethral swab, bacterial and viral PCR) or to the possibility that individual patients show a scarce expression of bacterial disease in biological fluids, because of intraglandular biofilm presence, with subsequent spreading of the sole plankton microrganisms. Actually, the presence of a biofilm may possibly represent the reason for difficult diagnoses and ineffective antibacterial treatments.