If ever you or your love one underwent a treatment for bladder cancer, please share your experience with Lillian.
Lillian’s husband was diagnosed with bladder cancer. We already mentioned the immunotherapy bladder cancer treatment BCG. Lillian’s husband’s doctors opted for a surgical removal of the whole bladder.
Stages and treatment for bladder cancer
Bladder cancer in men can spread to the nearby organs (prostate, ureters and rectum) or spread through the lymph nodes to the bones, liver and lungs.
- Stage 0 bladder cancer : Non-invasive tumors that are only in the bladder lining
- Stage I bladder cancer : Tumor goes through the bladder lining, but does not reach the muscle layer of the bladder
- Stage II bladder cancer : Tumor goes into the muscle layer of the bladder
- Stage III bladder cancer : Tumor goes past the muscle layer into tissue surrounding the bladder
- Stage IV bladder cancer : Cancer has spread to lymph nodes in the area of the tumor or to distant sites (metastatic disease)
Determining the best treatment of bladder cancer depends on:
- the above outlined stages of the tumor,
- the severity of the bladder cancer symptoms
- the general health of the bladder cancer patient (how he can cope with radiation and chemotherapy side effects) and
- the presence of other medical conditions.
Stage 0 and I bladder cancer treatment:
- Surgery to remove the tumor: this means only the tumor will be removed and not the entire bladder
- Chemotherapy or immunotherapy directly into the bladder
Stage II and III treatment of bladder cancer:
- Surgery to remove only part of the bladder, followed by radiation and chemotherapy
- Chemotherapy to shrink the tumor before surgery
- A combination of chemotherapy and radiation (in patients who choose not to have surgery or who cannot have surgery)
- Surgery to remove the entire bladder (radical cystectomy), usually followed by radiation therapy or chemotherapy to decrease the chance that the cancer returns
Stage IV treatment of bladder cancer:
Most patients with stage IV tumors cannot be cured so surgery is not an option. These patients will be given chemotherapy to reduce the cancer symptoms.
Bladder cancer prognosis
Lillian asks what to expect?
The answer has to be given by the doctors who are treating your husband.
It is best you or your children or your best friend has a "neutral talk" to the doctors.
My extra questions would be:
- how successful was the radical cystectomy for treating the bladder cancer
- was the cancer already in the lymph nodes when the diagnosis of the bladder cancer was made (if it wasn’t, then the metastatic liver cancer sounds recent and aggressive, again, this is for your doctors to answer, speculations are useless.)
- why did your husband have radiation after his bladder surgery and how successful was the radiation therapy (what did ‘all’ mean when they said they got it all)
- what is the prognosis based on your doctor’s experience
- can the doctor recommend a ‘better hospital’, a more specialized hospital than the one you are in now (to get a second opinion from these more specialized doctors)
The doctor’s answer will be based on "a treatment of bladder cancer with normal effort
in such a hospital".
Try to find extra-ordinary help like better nutrition for victory over cancer as part of complete holistic cancer treatments:
e.g. Jim’s son gets treated by an oncology nurse with an Msc. in cancer nursing who also nursed her own way back from breast cancer having first hand breast cancer information and using alternative therapies (read Jim’s son metastatic liver cancer survivor at Colon cancer spread to liver ),
Jim’s son is in a ‘better situation’ than the doctor’s "treatment of bladder cancer with normal effort in such a hospital".
For father’s metastatic liver cancer, we didn’t manage to get extra-ordinary help in treating his cancer, although we did manage to organize a great team of nurses and palliative care-takers helping us out taking care of father’s metastatic liver cancer.
We also considered the latest new cancer treatments but in our case of metastatic liver cancer with unknown primary, the unknown primary kind of dismissed further cancer treatment options.
Lillian’s treatment for bladder cancer story
Lillian left her cancer story in a comment at: Death of actor Patrick Swayze
My husband was diagnosed with bladder cancer this past summer.
They operated and removed the bladder and said they got it all and was told he should do radiation.
Into the 2nd week of radiation he was losing weight and got ill.
Now he has been diagnosed with cancer in his liver and small intestine..
The Doctors are trying to get the pain under control.
We have not been given an expected length of time for him. What should we expect??
Treatment for bladder cancer summarized
The treatment of bladder cancer is straight forward and all Lillian mentions above sounds ‘normal procedure’.
I do wonder what was meant when the doctors said after the removal of the bladder : "they got it all". Logically: if they got all cancers removed, there wouldn’t be a metastatic liver cancer at this moment.
All you can do Lillian is let somebody visit the doctor without your husband to ask what kind of treatment for bladder cancer he is given now and what the prognosis is.
Then ask for a second opinion and always feel free to share your story here and ask for more feedback.