Doctors diagnose bladder cancer with the help of physical exams, medical history reviews, and diagnostic tests and procedures. Upon confirming the diagnosis, your doctor will discuss suitable cancer treatments, which depend on the scope and severity of the illness.
Surgery can often be used to remove cancerous tissues, but surgery is not appropriate for all patients. Additionally, it may not be possible to remove all cancerous tissues with surgery alone, in which case the following treatments may be recommended.
A chemotherapy medication called mitomycin C ceases the function of DNA within cancer cells, which can stop them from spreading. Chemotherapy treatments for bladder cancer are often intravesical, which means they are administered directly to the bladder via catheter (immunotherapy drugs can also be administered this way). However, chemotherapy medications can be administered systemically, which means they are delivered to the whole body.
The immune system is often ineffective at fighting cancer cells because these cells use different methods to avoid detection (such as making the immune system believe that cancer cells are normal). Bacille Calmette–Guerin medication enlists the immune system in the fight against cancer. Once this drug is inside the bladder lining, it triggers an immune system response that targets cancerous cells specifically.
Fibroblast growth factor receptor inhibitors pinpoint certain genes that produce proteins that facilitate the growth of bladder cancer cells. There are also antibody-drug conjugates, which are mechanisms that deliver chemotherapy medications directly to cancerous cells.