Effects of low-intensity pulsed ultrasound on the microorganisms of expressed prostatic secretion in patients with IIIB prostatitis

Abstract

To detect and analyze the changes of microorganisms in expressed prostatic secretion (EPS) of patients with IIIB prostatitis before and after low-intensity pulsed ultrasound (LIPUS) treatment, and to explore the mechanism of LIPUS in the treatment of chronic prostatitis (CP). 25 patients (study power was estimated using a Dirichlet-multinomial approach and reached 96.5% at α = 0.05 using a sample size of 25) with IIIB prostatitis who were effective in LIPUS treatment were divided into two groups before and after LIPUS treatment. High throughput second-generation sequencing technique was used to detect and analyze the relative abundance of bacterial 16 s ribosomal variable regions in EPS before and after treatment. The data were analyzed by bioinformatics software and database, and differences with P < 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Beta diversity analysis showed that there was a significant difference between groups (P = 0.046). LEfSe detected four kinds of characteristic microorganisms in the EPS of patients with IIIB prostatitis before and after LIPUS treatment. After multiple comparisons among groups by DESeq2 method, six different microorganisms were found. LIPUS may improve patients’ clinical symptoms by changing the flora structure of EPS, stabilizing and affecting resident bacteria or opportunistic pathogens.