Bladder cancer: Expertise, advanced treatments and support to help you defeat cancer

Bladder cancer is much more common in smokers than nonsmokers.

If you’ve had bladder cancer once, you’re at an increased risk of getting it again. You also might have a slightly higher risk of the disease if others in your family have had it.

Caucasians are twice as likely to get bladder cancer as African Americans.

Males are far more likely to get bladder cancer than females.

Certain industrial chemicals have been linked to bladder cancer. If you work in the dye, paint, leather, rubber or textile industries, you have an increased risk.

For this test, we guide a thin tube with a camera into your bladder through your urethra (the tube that carries urine from your bladder out of your body). This allows us to view suspicious areas and collect tissue as needed.

We use CT scans, ultrasounds and special types of X-ray to get images of your urinary tract.

We use this surgical procedure to diagnose and treat bladder cancer.

These tests allow us to look for signs of cancer in a sample of your urine.

In some cases, we may need to remove your bladder. Urinary tract reconstruction is done at the same time to allow you to still eliminate your urine. Types of reconstruction we offer include:

• Neobladder: Uses a portion of your small intestine (ileum) to make a new bladder. This allows for “normal” urination.

• Ileal conduit (urostomy): Uses a portion of your small intestine to create a pipe. The surgeon  connects the kidney tubes (ureters) to a small piece of small intestine (ileum).  The end is brought out through the abdomen and secured to the skin as a stoma. Urine drains into a bag that you wear outside of your body.

• Continent cutaneous pouch (Indiana pouch): Uses part of your intestine (colon and ileum) to create an internal pouch. The end is brought out through the abdomen and secured to the skin as a stoma. You drain the pouch by intermittently passing a catheter when the internal pouch fills up with urine. You do not have to wear a bag outside your body.

These are complex urinary tract reconstructions and your surgeon will spend a great deal of time with you explaining these and figuring out what might work best for you.

Cystectomy is surgery to remove your bladder. At UW Health, we use robotic surgery for this procedure when appropriate. It’s less invasive than open surgery, uses smaller incisions and causes less blood loss and pain. Surgeons can often spare nerve bundles that help men have erections. They also might be able to preserve a woman’s vagina, uterus, ovaries and fallopian tubes when appropriate.

Cysview blue light cystoscopy is a procedure that makes it easier to see cancer in your bladder. It involves putting a special solution into your bladder. Doctors use a cystoscope to view your bladder in white and blue light. Tumor cells stand out during this procedure. It helps doctors find even very small tumors.

Cancer and cancer treatments can affect your ability to have a child. If you hope to have children in the future, we work with Generations Fertility Care.

Radiation is a type of cancer treatment that uses high doses of radiation to kill cancer cells and shrink tumors

It focuses on a certain area of your body. We use radiation that conforms to your tumor to limit exposure to nearby organs.

Surgery is the main treatment for many bladder cancers. In some cases, we combine radiation with chemotherapy as your first treatment, followed by surgery if needed. If surgery isn’t a good option for you because of other health concerns, we use chemotherapy and radiation.

UW Carbone Cancer Center physicians and researchers are actively engaged in bladder cancer research. We help people live as well as possible for as long as possible.

Specific areas we focus on include:

• Finding markers of cancer recurrence or progression

• Understanding the early events in cancer formation

• Using medication to keep bladder cancer from progressing or returning

Chemotherapy is the use of drugs to kill cancer cells. Chemotherapy remains one of the most effective treatments for bladder cancer. We often give chemotherapy before surgery if your cancer has a high risk of spreading to other areas of your body. It’s often the first treatment we use after your diagnosis if we know your cancer has spread.

In addition, chemotherapy is a very effective treatment of metastatic bladder cancer.

Immunotherapy is an effective treatment for bladder cancer. It uses your own immune system to attack cancer cells.

Immunotherapy using immune checkpoint inhibitors is a novel treatment approach for bladder cancer. These treatments are effective and have revolutionized the systemic treatment of bladder cancer since 2017.

These agents use specific antibodies to direct the chemotherapy molecules to the cancer cells. A higher concentration of drug molecules in the cancer cells makes this treatment more effective and reduces the treatment-related side effects.