Bladder cancer is the balloon-shaped organ in pelvic region that stores urine. Some bladder cancer remains confined to the lining while other may enter other region. Most people who suffer from bladder cancer are older people greater than 50. Smoking is the single risk factor that causes bladder cancer.
Causes of Cancer of the Bladder
The actual cause of bladder cancer is unknown, but there are some proven risk factors. They include:
smoking - smokers are twice as likely to develop bladder cancer than non-smokers
chemical exposure - certain chemicals, such as those used in the following professions, can become concentrated in the urine, creating a risk factor for cancer:
hairdressers
painters
textile workers
dye, leather, and rubber workers
Smoking is one of the most obvious risk factors that can contribute to bladder cancer. What’s worse, by the time bladder cancer starts to appear, the patient has likely been smoking for what may amount to decades. The ongoing deposit of carcinogens in the lungs and through the lungs into the blood stream has been considerable.
Symptoms of Bladder Cancer
Bladder cancer often doesn’t produce signs or symptoms in its early stages.
When symptoms are present, the most common symptom of bladder cancer is blood in the urine.
Blood in the urine is a condition called haematuria. Blood in the urine may appear suddenly with no apparent cause, and usually there is not any pain associated with it. The urine may vary from rusty brown to deep red, depending on the amount of blood. The blood may be present some days and not others, and may disappear for weeks or months. The amount of blood is not related to the extent of the cancer. Sometimes blood clots can form and cause pain or obstruction to the flow of urine.
The most common warning sign of bladder cancer is blood in the urine. “Total painless hematuria” in an elderly person is a dictum associated with bladder cancer. Depending on the amount of blood present, the color of the urine can range from faintly rusty to deep red. Pain during urination can also be a sign of bladder cancer. A need to urinate often or urgently may be another warning sign. Often, bladder tumors cause no symptoms.
Bladder Cancer treatment:
Similar to most of the other types of cancers, bladder cancer also can be treated with surgery, radiotherapy, hormone therapy, medication, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, nutritional therapy, interferon/interleukin etc. Surgery (also known as Cystectomy) is used to remove the infected part of the bladder or entire bladder from the patient’s body (the organs removed in men during Cystectomy are bladder, prostate and lymph nodes and in women bladder, uterus and also some part of anterior vagina-wall are removed). Medication can be used to destroy the remaining infected cells and help the patient regain strength after surgery. The type and combination of various treatments to be followed will be decided by physician based on the stage bladder cancer is in and the complexity involved.
For the patients with bladder cancer in its early stage, Transuretral Resection (TUR) can also be used based on the various parameters. In this technique, the tumor on the wall of bladder is scrapped using resectoscope.
Cancer that is only in cells in the lining of the bladder is called superficial bladder cancer. The doctor might call it carcinoma in situ, which is cancer that involves only the cells in which it began–and that has not spread to neighboring tissues. This type of bladder cancer often comes back after treatment. If this happens, the disease most often recurs as another superficial cancer in the bladder.
Cancer that begins as a superficial tumor may grow through the lining and into the muscular wall of the bladder. This is known as invasive cancer. Invasive cancer may extend through the bladder wall. It may grow into a nearby organ such as the uterus or vagina (in women) or the prostate gland (in men). It also may invade the wall of the wall of the abdomen.
