Cancer Outside The Bladder Wall

Nearly all bladder cancers start in the lining or urothelium.

Cancer outside the bladder wall. Although urothelial carcinomas bladder cancers always start at the inner lining of the bladder as they grow they can burrow deeper and enlarge within or through the wall of the bladder while not increasing in size within the cavity of the bladder. As the cancer grows through the layers of the bladder wall it becomes harder to treat. Bladder cancer usually starts in the lining or inner layer of the bladder wall. T4 means cancer has grown outside the bladder or into the prostate womb or vagina or into the wall of the pelvis the area between the hip bones or tummy abdomen your doctor also looks at.

In stage ii cancer has spread to the muscle wall of the bladder. Low grade bladder cancer is less likelythan high grade bladder cancer to spread into the muscle wall of the bladder and beyond. Urothelial cancer can happen in the kidneys and ureters too but it s much more common in the bladder. Next is a thick layer of muscle.

Stages ii to iv denote invasive cancer. Whether cancer has spread to any lymph nodes this is called the n stage. Bladder cancer most often begins in the cells urothelial cells that line the inside of your bladder. In stage iii the cancer has spread to the fatty tissue outside the bladder muscle.

But my daughter saw a urologist who did a blue light cystoscopy which showed 2 spots on the inside of the bladder which were not muscle invasive. During the surgery the surgeon saw a spot on the outside of her bladder so he removed it and biopsied it. The cancer is in the bladder rectum or organs far from the uterus such as the lungs. The cancer has spread to the bladder or rectum and possibly nearby lymph nodes.

The surgeon was 100 sure his words that he got it all. It was a small cell carcinoma. Urothelial cells are also found in your kidneys and the tubes ureters that connect the kidneys to the bladder. The transitional epithelium on the picture is the lining layer where most bladder cancers start.

Beneath the urothelium is a thin layer of connective tissue blood vessels and nerves. In stage iv the cancer has metastasized from the bladder to the lymph nodes or to other organs or bones. For patients with metastatic disease at presentation or those in which bladder cancer cells are present outside the bladder wall or in lymph nodes during radical cystectomy systemic usually intravenous chemotherapy is the treatment of choice.