The urinary bladder is a hollow purse like storage organ which collects urine from the kidneys and stores it until it can be passed out of the body through the urethra during the process of micturition or urination. It has a thin inner lining of cells called urothelial cells and a thick muscular wall, which exerts pressure to push the urine out of the body.
Causes of Bladder Tumors
In most cases, the bladder tumor develops on the inner layer due to a combination of some of the following factors.
- Hereditary: A strong family history of cancer predisposes a person to cancer.
- Gender: Men are 3 times more prone to bladder cancer than women.
- Ethnicity: White people are more prone to bladder cancer in black people.
- Smoking / Tobacco use: Smokers develop bladder cancer 2-6 times more frequently than non-smokers. Tobacco contains toxic, carcinogenic substances that reach the kidney and are stored in the bladder, leading to cancerous changes in the bladder.
- Occupational hazards: Some workplaces have a higher likelihood of causing bladder cancers, especially dye and rubber industries. The effects can be damaging, and the person may develop cancers years after the exposure has happened.
- Recurrent bladder infections: In some people, this can also lead to bladder cancer in the long run.
Types of Bladder Tumor
Depending on the extent of the cancerous spread, it can be of two types:
- Non-muscle-invasive bladder tumors: The tumor spread is limited to the inner part of the bladder (urothelial cells)
- Muscle-invasive bladder tumor: The tumor has spread to the thick muscular outer layer. This is more advanced and the prognosis is poor compared to the noninvasive type.
The most common and diagnostic symptom of bladder cancer is the presence of blood in the urine without pain in the abdomen, known as painless hematuria. This is usually intermittent and stops on its own. Therefore any person who is more than 40 years old, has blood in urine, must be checked to rule out bladder tumors. If you miss these early warning symptoms by just thinking simple infection, you may miss the tumor and will be diagnosed later when the tumor is advanced.
Other symptoms include pain in the lower abdomen and frequent urination.
Diagnosis
From the most non-invasive to the most invasive diagnostic test, these include:
- Urine microscopy and cytology to detect blood and cancer cells in the urine
- Ultrasound and CT Scan can define the bladder tumor, its size, and spread.
- Cystoscopy and biopsy – A tube inserted into the urethra to look into the inner wall of the bladder and biopsy is taken from lesion. It is highly diagnostic and confirmatory.
Treatment
TURBT: Once the tumor is diagnosed, the first step of the bladder cancer treatment in Delhi is endoscopic surgery known as transurethral resection of the bladder tumor (TURBT). The cancerous bladder lesion is resected and removed through a cystoscope. Muscle tissue from the base of the tumor is also resected to check the spread of the tumor in the muscle. The bladder is then flushed with the chemotherapy agent to kill any residual cancer cells in the bladder.
Intravesical BCG Therapy: If the muscle is not involved with a tumor, this is called a superficial tumor. As there is a high chance that this tumor may recur or progress, the bladder is treated with BCG injection therapy repeatedly for at least 6 weeks to many months. Check cystoscopy is usually done thereafter to check for any recurrence at frequent intervals.
Radical Cystectomy with Ileal conduit or Neo-Bladder: If the tumor is involving muscle layer of bladder then the whole urinary bladder is removed surgically and urine passage is made at the abdominal wall using part of the intestine called Ileal conduit. A patient has to wear a bag on the abdomen to urine collection and discharge. Nowadays, the artificial bladder is made by the patient’s own intestine which functions like normal bladder and the patient passes urine per urethra.
Radical Radiotherapy: This is also an alternative treatment for muscle-invasive bladder cancer where the bladder is preserved and treated by radiotherapy. Repeated check cystoscopy is required thereafter to check for recurrence.
Chemotherapy: If the tumor has advanced to lymph nodes and other body organs, then the option for bladder cancer treatment in Noida is chemotherapy where anticancer drugs are injected into veins.
In Summary,
Bladder cancer is usually caused by Tobacco consumption.
Blood in urine even if it stops on its own or by medications, in-person over 40 years of age must be evaluated for bladder cancer.
In the early stage, it can be treated by cystoscopy.
If it involved muscle, the bladder is removed and neo-bladder is made.