Vaccine for UTI in development, offering relief to frequent infections

CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) - Urinary tract infections are not just uncomfortable and inconvenient. They can actually be deadly.

Thousands of people die in the U.S. each year and millions head to the doctor or the emergency room because of these painful infections.

But there’s new hope for those who suffer from frequent UTIs. But it’s an unusual vaccine.

Fifty percent of women will get a UTI in their lifetime.

“It’s a horrible feeling. You feel the urgency, that you have to go to the bathroom. It’s very painful, it burns,” said Yolanda Khoury.

Many, like Khoury, suffer from frequent or recurring UTIs.

“I have two or three a year,” she said.

These patients often end up at urgent cares and ERs, desperate for relief and treatment.

“And they’re at a risk of another UTI right after that treatment just because of the way our immune system deals with the bacterial infection and the bladder,” said Dr. Rachel Pope, Gynecologist at The Urology Institute at University Hospitals.

She says older patients during or after menopause are at particularly higher risk because of the lack of estrogen to help fight off infections.

“Especially in assisted living facilities and elderly patients. They’re not necessarily getting that burning sensation or these classic symptoms of a urinary tract infection. Sometimes it’s showing up as delirium, confusion or mental status changes and they very well might end up in the hospital until a UTI is diagnosed,” said Dr. Pope.

In the U.S. we see 10.5 million doctors visits and three million emergency room visits each year because of UTIs.

Patients can even become septic and die if these infections aren’t caught and treated.

There’s also a societal cost in terms of missing work, with an estimated three point five billion dollars worth of loss in productivity.

But a new vaccine is giving patients like Yolanda Khoury hope for relief.

Uromune targets four of the most common bacteria known to cause UTIs.

It’s an ‘inactivated” or “killed” vaccine, which is similar to vaccinations currently used for Hepatitis A, and the seasonal flu.

The vaccine is not yet FDA-approved or available to patients but have been proven effective in an FDA phase 3 clinical trial.

Dr. Pope says introducing this vaccine to her patients would be huge.

“What they found from research is after the first year of taking it, it reduces the nujmber of infections by 70%. So that’s massive for a woman who’s getting six to ten urinary tract infections a year,” said Dr. Pope.

The efficacy numbers lessen after the first twelve months but are still at about 30%.

This isn’t a roll-up-your-sleeves kind of vaccine though. The application of this UTI vaccine is very unusual.

Patients will have to spray the pineapple-flavored vaccine under their tongue every day for 90 days.

“It’s intense but I think this patient population is motivated. They really want to do anything to avoid that next urinary tract infection,” said Dr. Pope.

“Anything’s better than having pain. Because throughout my life having these bladder infections, it’s interfered with me at work,” Khoury said.

Dr. Pope says there’s not a lot of data out there yet detailing how much the efficacy drops off if patients skip doses.

But those who are using it are seeing their immune system’s memory triggered to remember the bacteria that are coming back and successfully fighting it off.

She says once it’s available, she’ll be recommending it to her patients with frequent UTIs as a way to keep them off of so many antibiotics.

“I mentioned to my doctor. Let me be the first patient. I’m that enthusiastic. I believe this is a great breakthrough for women,” Khoury said.

She is confident this vaccine will improve her quality of life and looks forward to enjoying things others who don’t suffer from frequent UTIs take for granted, like plane rides.

“I always make made sure that I get my seats right in the back next to the bathroom. So now I can sit up in the front and enjoy the ride,” she said.