Table 1.

Animal Models of Lower Urinary Tract (LUT) Inflammation

Cause of LUT Inflammation	Species	Advantages	Disadvantages	References
Spontaneous Inflammation	Cats	Develops without external intervention	Etiology remains unknown	19 – 28, 35, 36, 39
Neurogenic Inflammation	Mice, Rats, Guinea Pigs	Viral model results in inflammation without external manipulation of the bladder	Difficult to be certain that inflammation solely arises from activation of nerves	41 – 50, 54 – 59, 65, 71, 73 – 75, 78 80, 82 - 88
Autoimmunity	Mice, Rats, Guinea Pigs	IC/PBS patients have a high co- morbidity of immune-related disease	Target(s) of immune response in bladder remain uncertain	94, 98 - 103
Intravesical Instillation or Urinary Excretions of Irritants	Mice, Rats	Can control severity and duration of inflammation	Causes indiscriminate damage to glycosaminoglycan layer, urothelium, and wall of bladder by multiple mechanisms	16, 17, 104, 105, 119 – 136,
Intravesical Instillation of Bacterial Products	Mice, Rats	Bacterial infection occurs naturally in humans	Difficult to recapitulate genetic and environmental factors influencing response of bladder	12, 13, 106, 107 – 115, 118,
Transurethral Instillation of Bacteria into the Prostate	Mice	Consistently produces acute or chronic inflammation	Role of infection remains unclear in BPH, prostatic pain, or prostatic inflammation in patients	150