It has been estimated that up to half of all men suffer from symptoms of prostatitis at some time in their lives.1 In the early 1990s, prostatitis resulted in 2 million office visits per year in the USA,2 rivalling the number of visits for benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH) at the time. It is the most frequent urological diagnosis in men less than 50 years of age and the third most common urological diagnosis in men greater than 50 years of age.2 It has been clearly demonstrated that chronic prostatitis has an impact on a patient's quality of life similar to a myocardial infarction, angina or Crohn's disease.3 Prostatitis is a major health care issue, as important as the other two major prostatic diseases, BPH and carcinoma.4 Even so, our knowledge of prostatitis is still somewhat limited.