Author response to letter to editor:
The authors of the original article [Citation1] should understand that the associated editorial [Citation2] they refer to in their letter to the editor showed that we are in more agreement than disagreement. Certainly we do not disagree (‘vehemently’ is really too harsh a word for such discussion) that we need to ‘continue the efforts to phenotype the disorder and discover what treatments may benefit individual phenotypes’. We also agree that when we truly understand the ‘etiology, new biomarkers, pathology, response to different therapies…’ for IC/BPS, we will perhaps be ready to classify Hunner Lesion IC as a separate disease entity if that actually turns out to be an evidence based case. We further agree that patients with Hunner Lesions (once we have some sort of international consensus of who those patients are) ‘should be diagnosed and treated apart from those with non-Hunner lesion BPS/IC’. So, in fact, we are in almost total agreement except for the concept that confirmatory evidence is presently sufficient to make a solid case that BPS/IC patients with Hunner Lesions should be classified as a new disease entity. Let’s just not be premature until ongoing research proves this is a valid conclusion. Otherwise we may do more harm than good to our ongoing efforts to understand Hunner Lesion IC in the spectrum of BPS/IC.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
References
- Fall M, Nordling J, Cervigni M, et al. Hunner lesion disease differs in diagnosis, treatment and outcome from bladder pain syndrome: an ESSIC working group report. Scand J Urol. 2020;54(2):91–98.
- Nickel JC. It is premature to categorize Hunner lesion interstitial cystitis as a distinct disease entity. Scand J Urol. 2020;54(2):99–100.