Bladder Cancer

What is Hospice Care?

Hospice care is designed to provide care to patients at the end of life. The term originates from the same root as “hospitality,” the idea of providing shelter to a sick or weary traveler. According...

How Do I Get Involved In A Clinical Trial?

Most patients become involved in a clinical trial at the invitation of their own physician. Even at the largest centers, any individual physician will be involved in only a small number of trials, which may...

What Are Clinical Trials?

A clinical trial is the process through which new medications or therapies are tested to determine their ability to perform their stated task. They are also used to evaluate surgeries, radiation, and combinations of these...

How Is Metastatic Bladder Cancer Treated?

Metastatic bladder cancer is generally quite difficult to treat. Current treatment for bladder cancer that has spread outside of the bladder is aggressive chemotherapy. Most often, a combination of four drugs is given. These medications...

How Does Bladder Cancer Spread Outside Of The Bladder?

Whether bladder cancer is superficial or invasive, it must still be confined to the bladder to be treated successfully by surgery. Once the tumor escapes from the bladder, it is difficult or impossible to remove...

What Are The Risks Of Bladder-Sparing Therapy?

Bladder-sparing protocols have largely shown similar rates of long-term survival compared with immediate cystectomy. The studies have been criticized, however, as falsely improving their results by selecting only those patients who were already likely to...

What Is Bladder-Sparing Therapy?

Bladder-sparing therapy refers to any approach to the management of muscle-invasive bladder cancer in which the goal is to avoid radical cystectomy. There are a variety of approaches, mostly based on the use of chemotherapy...

What Is A Ureteral Stent, And How Is It Put In?

A ureteral stent is a long, soft tube that stretches from the kidney to the bladder. You have probably heard about cardiac stents for people who have clogged arteries. These stents hold the arteries open...

What Are The Risks Of A Partial Cystectomy?

The immediate surgical risks of a partial cystectomy are similar to the risks for a radical cystectomy. These include bleeding, infection, damage to adjacent organs, and so forth (see Question 39). During a radical cystectomy,...

Who Is A Candidate For A Partial Cystectomy?

To be eligible for a partial cystectomy, the tumor must be just in the right place and just the right size. Tumors at the dome (top) of the bladder are the most amenable to partial...

What Is A Partial Cystectomy?

A partial cystectomy is the removal of only that part of the bladder that has cancer in it. It essentially takes the place of the TURBT in other bladder-sparing protocols. It potentially improves the removal...

What Is A Continent Urinary Diversion?

A continent urinary diversion provides a reservoir for the urine that can be drained every few hours by a catheter inserted by the patient. A segment of bowel is used to create a pouch inside...

What Are The Possible Long-term Problems With A Urostomy?

Long-term problems after an ileal conduit are not uncommon. Overall, up to two thirds of patients will experience some type of problem. These problems can be categorized as follows. Stoma: About one in four patients...

How Will A Bag On My Abdomen Affect My Lifestyle?

Having a bag on your abdomen will not prevent you from doing the things that you used to do before surgery. The bag is pretty secure when snapped onto the wafer properly. Some individuals who...

How Will I Manage A Urostomy?

Removal of the entire bladder, radical cystectomy, is the gold standard treatment for invasive bladder cancer. Rarely, individuals may be candidates for less invasive surgery or bladder-sparing regimens. Historically, the primary option to divert the...

What Are The Advantages And Disadvantages Of A Neobladder?

The advantages of a neobladder over a urostomy or continent diversion are primarily lifestyle related and cosmetic. A neobladder is an attempt to replace the bladder with as close to a normal bladder, and therefore...

What Is A Neobladder?

A neobladder is one of the options for reconstruction of the urinary tract after surgery. Other options include an ileal conduit or a continent cutaneous diversion. A neobladder is an attempt to replace the normal...

Where Will My Urine Go Now That My Bladder Is Gone?

This is an important question. Obviously, your body still needs to make urine. It would be ideal to replace your bladder with an artificial or synthetic bladder. Unfortunately, no one has found a man-made material...