Bladder cancer

Bladder cancer is any of several types of cancer arising from the epithelial lining (i.e., the urothelium) of the urinary bladder. Rarely the bladder is involved by non-epithelial cancers, such as lymphoma or sarcoma, but these are not ordinarily included in the colloquial term "bladder cancer." It is a disease in which abnormal cells multiply without control in the bladder.

The most common type of bladder cancer recapitulates the normal histology of the urothelium and is known as transitional cell carcinoma or more properly urothelial cell carcinoma. Five-year survival rates in the United States are around 77%.

Bladder cancer is the 9th leading cause of cancer with 430,000 new cases and 165,000 deaths occurring in 2012.

Signs and symptoms

Bladder cancer characteristically causes blood (redness) in the urine. This blood in the urine may be visible to the naked eye (gross/macroscopic hematuria) or detectable only by microscope (microscopic hematuria). Hematuria is the most common symptom in bladder cancer. It occurs in approximately 80-90% of the patients.