We often find blood and white cells in urine samples. It makes us wonder how many of these are due to infections and how many may have something else going on. Blood in the urine can mean benign tumors, kidney stones, normal variant, infection, trauma, cysts, cancer and other problems. There are over 63,000 new cases of urinary bladder cancer each year in the US and over 13,000 deaths. The incidence and death rate in men is almost three times that in women; bladder cancer is in fact the fourth most common cause of cancer in men after prostate, lung/bronchus and colorectal and only the ninth most common in women. Overall, bladder cancer is the fifth most common cancer in the United States.
A more serious problem for women
More alarming is the fact that the prognosis in women tends to be less favorable than in men. In fact, women are almost twice as likely as men to die from the disease. Women tend to be diagnosed 6 to 9 months later, on average, than men, and their outlook is not as good as men.
Survival rates in men and women
There is great work being done to change these statistics. Looking and what is happening to men and women helps to learn about bladder cancer. The overall 5-year survival rate in women tends to equal the 10-year survival rate in men, while the 10-year survival rate in women equals the 15-year survival rate in men. This means that women with bladder cancer survive on average 5 years less than men.
Hidden cancer
The reasons for this gender disparity probably have a great deal to do with the fact that simple bladder infections is frequent in women than in men, and women who go to their primary care physician complaining of pain on urination, or of blood in the urine, are very likely to be treated on the assumption that they have cystitis. All too often when repeated courses of antibiotics fail to clear the problem, is it more thoroughly investigated and found to be cancer. This may occur when there are only red blood cells instead of red cells and white cells which usually mean a bladder infection.
Occurs in developed countries
Bladder cancer is mostly widespread in developed countries. It is supposed to be the fifth most frequent kind of cancer in the United States and it is the fourth most widespread in men and then it is ranked as ninth in women. Every year one can find about 67,000 new cases of bladder cancer.
Understanding the anatomy
The bladder is a hollow organ whose purpose is to hold for the urine that is produced by the kidneys. The urine travels from the kidneys to the bladder via long, thin tubes called ureters. The wall of the bladder is composed of an inner lining, and a muscular layer which allows for the expansion and contraction of the bladder. This lining is made up of specialized cells, sometimes called transitional cells, which are capable of stretching and flattening as the bladder fills and empties.
Where do they start?
Most cancers of the bladder start within the urothelium or the lining of the bladder. Thus the name urothelial or transitional cell cancers. Staging and treatment of bladder cancer depends very much on whether the cancer is contained within this urothelial lining and whether it has spread and invaded beyond the lining and into the muscular wall of the bladder.
Urothelial cell cancers comprise the great majority of bladder cancers, about 90 percent of bladder cancers. The remaining 10 percent are what are called adenocarcinomas. Although is kind of cancer can occur in other parts of the body, these are tumors that arise within the microscopic glands that are scattered throughout the lining of the bladder
Not all tumors of the bladder are malignant, there are certain benign tumors, known as papillomas, can occur in the interior of the bladder. In 5 to 10 percent of cases these benign tumors can progress to become malignant over time.
Bladder cancer is a term which is associated with various types of malignant growths of the urinary bladder. It is a problem in which atypical cells continue to grow devoid of control in the bladder. The bladder is supposed to be a hollow muscular organ which does the work of storing urine.