Karyn S. Eilber, MD, shares her reaction to genitourinary syndrome of menopause guidelines

One of many notable highlights from the 2025 American Urological Association Annual Meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada was the release of the “Genitourinary Syndrome of Menopause: AUA/SUFU [Society of Urodynamics, Female Pelvic Medicine & Urogenital Reconstruction]/[American Urogynecologic Society] Guideline.” In an interview with Urology Times^®, described the significance of the new document.

“I think the best thing about these guidelines is their actual existence,” said Eilber, chair of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Group department of surgery and professor of urology, and associate professor of obstetrics & gynecology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, and member of the plusOne Wellness Collective.

“Every woman who lives long enough will experience menopause, and over 85%—probably closer to 87%—of women will experience some symptom of genitourinary syndrome of menopause,” Eilber said.

Eilber was also asked how clinicians can most effectively elicit and interpret subjective patient-reported symptoms to arrive at an accurate diagnosis, particularly in cases with overlapping urologic and gynecologic symptoms.

“I think 1 thing we need to do is get out of the habit of assuming that certain symptoms are due to common conditions. When a woman complains about urinary frequency, urgency, burning with urination, we will treat her for urinary tract infection over and over again, despite tests being negative. We see this with interstitial cystitis. We see this with GSM. Even in men, if they have frequency, we always assume it's BPH [benign prostatic hyperplasia], regardless of whether they're responding to BPH treatments or not. I think 1 thing they need to do is get out of the habit of just treating everything with these types of symptoms as a UTI,” Eilber said.