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Urinary incontinence

Making sense of the urinary microbiota in clinical urology

Nature Reviews Urology volume 13, pages 567–568 (2016)Cite this article

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Some urologists might be surprised that the urinary tract is not sterile, and bacteria might have important roles in a number of urological conditions such as urge incontinence. This paradigm shift, which has been further illustrated by data from a recent study, has implications for how urologists diagnose disease and treat patients.

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Figure 1: Anatomy of the vagus nerve.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Gregor Reid and Jeremy P. Burton are at the Departments of Microbiology & Immunology, and Surgery (Urology), Western University and Lawson Health Research Institute, 268 Grosvenor Street, London, Ontario N6A 4V2, Canada.,

    Gregor Reid & Jeremy P. Burton

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  1. Gregor Reid
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  2. Jeremy P. Burton
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Correspondence to Gregor Reid.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Glossary

Microbiota

The term microbiota describes all microorganisms present in a given niche. In many instances, studies only refer to bacteria in the microbiota, but fungi and viruses, for example, can also be included in this term.

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Reid, G., Burton, J. Making sense of the urinary microbiota in clinical urology. Nat Rev Urol 13, 567–568 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrurol.2016.182

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