Bladder cancer can be diagnosed via urine tests and ultrasound scan.
Diagnosis of bladder cancer
Bladder cancer can be diagnosed through the following clinical findings, laboratory and radiological tests, according to doctors from the
Urology Centre at
Singapore General Hospital, a member of the
SingHealth group.
Bladder cancer may be divided into:
The long-term outcome of bladder cancer depends on:
Treatment of bladder cancer
These cancers rarely spread and can usually be cured. Left untreated they may, in some cases, develop into muscle-invasive tumours.
These are usually treated in the following ways:
Muscle-invasive tumours have a high chance of spreading to other parts of the body and treatment is usually more aggressive.
Treatment options may include:
Sometimes a combination of treatment – chemotherapy with surgery or radiation – is needed to improve the chances of cure in selected patients.
Treatment under clinical trial
Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a cancer treatment in which a light-sensitive drug is administered to the bladder and laser light is used to activate the drug to kill cancer cells.
What happens during surgery?At the time of surgery, the entire bladder is removed. The ureters are disconnected from the bladder and joined to a loop of small intestines specially fashioned to contain urine. Depending on the pre-operative medical condition, stage of disease, and ability to perform clean intermittent self-catheterisation, the loop of small intestine may be:
Figure 10
a. Ileal Conduit creation, where a segment of the intestine directs urine through a stoma into an external collecting bag,
b. ileal neobladder creation, where a loop of intestine is fashioned into a urine reservoir and connected to the urethra
Ref: N18
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