Treatment for Bladder Cancer: What patients Need to Understand

Although bladder cancer doesn't get as much pressure as colon or lung cancer, it's the fourth most frequent form of cancer among men. Finding out that you have bladder cancer can be frightening, but today's developments in the diagnosis and treatment of the disease mean that you can beat the condition. Let's take a look at how we first diagnose bladder cancer, how we treat it, and what happens next for patients.
 
Signs of Bladder Cancer and Treatment
 
The most popular reason patients see a professional is that they have seen blood in their urine. However, this is not a feasible predictor of bladder cancer. Blood in the urine is also a symptom of some non-cancer disorders, such as an enlarged prostate, kidney problems, or urinary tract infection.
 
Patients often describe getting to go to the toilet more often than usual or having to go more quickly, and the therapies their primary care physicians have sought have not improved. now and then, some patients have had a computed tomography (CT) scan for some other cause (such as a car accident) and the radiologist has seen a bladder tumor in the scan pictures.
 
Primary care physicians and other urologists also refer their patients to the Basil Onco Care Center because of our experience in the diagnosis and treatment of bladder cancer. The diagnosis process begins with a special form of CT scan called a CT urogram, which produces images of the entire urinary tract.

This contains the following: Bladder, Kidneys, Ureters, tubes bringing urine from the kidneys to the Urinary Bladder.

How we treat Cancer of the Bladder
 
The next step is to extract the patient's tumor from the bladder through a technique called the Transurethral Resection of The Bladder Tumour (TURBT). This is the essential aspect of their care for many patients. TURBT surgery uses a device called a resectoscope, which we put through the urethra (the tube through which urine exits the body) and through the bladder. The resectoscope helps one to see through the bladder and extract suspected tissue or tumors patients generally go home on the same day or the day after a TURBT operation.
 
TURBT is also paired with blue-light cystoscopy. Around an hour before the tumor removal operation, we put a special dye in the patient's bladder. This dye is processed by cancer tissue, and after the tumor has been removed, we shine a blue light that causes the dye to look pink. This helps us to see any new tumors that were too tiny to be seen in prior scans and to ensure that we extracted all the tumor tissue from the patient's bladder.
 
Conventionally, since they no longer have a bladder to store urine from their kidneys, patients with bladder removal surgery also required a process called a urostomy. This includes making an artificial opening through a small piece of intestine for the urine to flow into a container outside the body, which needs to be adjusted periodically by the patient.
A newer alternative for some people is called neo-bladder construction, which includes taking a larger piece of the intestine and adding it to the urethra of the individual. All this is achieved inside the body even without external equipment. Neo Bladder construction is a Natural-looking approach that my patients embrace.

With more information and more advanced therapies available with Basil Onco Care and our specialist Dr. Nikunj Vethalani and in progress, we are sure that we will be able to support patients with this devastating disease.