Bladder cancer is quite a dangerous disease. Its main symptoms appear, usually when the cancer has passed into the second or 3rd stage.
When and why the cancer happen? Bladder cancer causes an unnatural growth of cells on the walls of the organ, which can provoke a previous disease. However, it is easily treatable with early diagnosis. It is not necessary to delay the visit to the doctor, as the cancer grows and affects the nearby organs with metastases.
Bladder cancer is more often attributed to diseases of the elderly, which more often affects the male half of society.
Causes of occurrence:
- excessive use of tobacco and alcohol;
- infectious disease;
- patient’s age;
- repetitive inflammatory process;
- stress, depression;
- harmful work in chemical plants;
- heredity;
- diabetes mellitus;
- prostate adenoma;
- prostatitis, cystitis;
- eating spicy food and fat.
Patients do not seek to see a doctor until the pathology becomes obvious or frightening. In the case of bladder cancer, the main “driving” factor is the appearance of blood in the urine. It is after this that many decide to see a doctor. What does a doctor do?
In case of such a complaint, the patient’s doctor prescribes a blood test and ultrasound. If there are abnormalities in the blood (for example, an increased number of red blood cells) and/or abnormal changes in the bladder are detected, then such a patient is referred to an oncologist.
If the oncologist confirms the presence of a cancerous tumor in the bladder, then the treatment algorithm is determined. At this stage, based on their statistical data, it is possible to predict an approximate prognosis for bladder cancer .
According to the statistics offered by modern medicine, the survival rate for 5 years (this is the international standard) after the treatment is:
- stages 0-I of oncological pathology – 89-97%. I.e., timely treatment allows you to save the lives of the absolute majority of patients;
- stage II. Here the survival rate is about 2/3 of all patients with a similar severity of the disease;
- stage III. According to statistics, only half of the patients with bladder cancer remain alive (to be precise, this is 47-50%);
- stage IV. Only 15-17% of patients with the most severe stage of bladder cancer remain alive after 5 years.
It should be understood that the main goal of doctors in the treatment of patients with bladder cancer (and in general, any cancer patients) is to prevent the transition to a more severe stage. In addition, systematic procedures can prevent the development of metastases. And, of course, with pain, such patients receive strong painkillers to lead a more or less normal social life.
