Bladder Cancer
What is Bladder Cancer?
Bladder cancer usually begins in the inner lining of the bladder, in special cells called transitional cells.
It can also grow in other parts of your urinary tract system including your kidneys, ureters, and urethra.
Risk Factors
- Smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke are the strongest risk factors for bladder cancer
- Age is another risk factor for bladder cancer. Eighty percent of bladder cancer cases occur in individuals 60 and older.
Symptoms
- Painless blood in the urine is the most common symptom of bladder cancer.
- Often, you cannot see blood in your urine without a microscope
Testing
If you have blood in your urine, your doctor will perform tests to confirm or rule out bladder cancer.
- Cystoscopy: Your doctor will use a thin tube that has a light and camera at the end of it (cystoscope) to pass through the urethra into the bladder. Usually your doctor will use a flexible cystoscope and a local anesthetic for your exam in the office.
- Imaging tests: Computerized tomography (CT) urogram or retrograde pyelogram, allow your doctor to examine the structures of your urinary tract
Treatments
- Transurethral resection of bladder tumor (TURBT). Your doctor can look inside the bladder, take tumor samples and resect (cut away) what he/she sees of your tumor.
- Intravesical (“within the bladder”) therapy is when a treatment drug is put directly into your bladder.
- Cystectomy is surgery to remove all or part of the bladder for recurrent or advanced bladder cancer.
- Partial cystectomy removes only the portion of the bladder that contains a single cancerous tumor.
- Radical cystectomy removes the entire bladder and the surrounding lymph nodes. Your urine will be stored and made to leave your body by a different route which is called a urinary diversion.
Testing
If you have blood in your urine, your doctor will perform tests to confirm or rule out bladder cancer.
- Cystoscopy: Your doctor will use a thin tube that has a light and camera at the end of it (cystoscope) to pass through the urethra into the bladder. Usually your doctor will use a flexible cystoscope and a local anesthetic for your exam in the office.
- Imaging tests: Computerized tomography (CT) urogram or retrograde pyelogram, allow your doctor to examine the structures of your urinary tract
Treatments
- Transurethral resection of bladder tumor (TURBT). Your doctor can look inside the bladder, take tumor samples and resect (cut away) what he/she sees of your tumor.
- Intravesical (“within the bladder”) therapy is when a treatment drug is put directly into your bladder.
- Cystectomy is surgery to remove all or part of the bladder for recurrent or advanced bladder cancer.
- Partial cystectomy removes only the portion of the bladder that contains a single cancerous tumor.
- Radical cystectomy removes the entire bladder and the surrounding lymph nodes. Your urine will be stored and made to leave your body by a different route which is called a urinary diversion.