Do vertically transmitted infections cause prostatitis?
When a 17-year-old virginal male presented with a series of symptoms typical for chronic prostatitis, I suspected for the first time that vertically transmitted infections could lead to prostatitis. Analyzing the parent’s reproductive history, it became apparent that a variety of infectious complications were obvious in both the father’s and mother’s genital tracts during their reproductive years and that the couple suffered from infertility, miscarriages, and even while the mother was pregnant with my patient, the pregnancy was complicated by an infection. I entertained the possibility that the same infection that compromised the parents’ reproductive performance was the cause of my patient’s chronic ear infections, chronic tonsillitis, and upper respiratory tract infections during his early life. My assumption was that the intrauterine and intravaginal bacterial flora during his intrauterine life gained access to his prostate during the pregnancy. The precise factors that allow these
