Bladder cancer prognosis information

Bladder Cancer

Bladder cancer is a malignant tumor of the bladder. The most common pathohistological type of bladder cancer is transitiocellular carcinoma. Adenocarcinoma and squam cell carcinomas do not occur so often.

After being diagnosed patients always expect to have insight in prognosis of the disease and they expect from doctor to be told how long they will live. They are also ready to make sacrifice and make huge life style changes in order to prolong life span. The statistics can be helpful although the course of the disease basically varies from patient to patient.

Prognosis of Bladder Cancer

Numerous factors interfere in prognosis of the disease. They include pathohistological type of the cancer, its grade and localization, stage of the disease, overall health of the patient and his/ her age. The prognosis also depends on whether the patient is suffering from additional illnesses which may prevent application of certain treatment modalities which drastically changes the course of the disease.

After taking all the previously mentioned into consideration doctors may assume what is going to happen. Still, they cannot be 100% sure whether the patient is going to respond to the therapy and enter the remission or the disease will progress in spite of the ongoing treatment. Even in very aggressive treatment it can happen that the disease progresses.

The most important thing related to bladder cancer is the type of the tumor, its grade and the stage of the disease. Some types are more aggressive. This also refers to grade of the tumor. If tumor cells are less differentiated, the tumor will be more aggressive.

Survival rates are indicator of the percentage of people who survive the disease for a determined period of time after the diagnosis has been set. The statistics include people with a certain type and stage of the cancer. Since survival rates refer to a large group of patients it is not possible to predict survival of each and every patient. Some patients may exceed the expected period of survival while other may die before the limited period of time. Survival rates can be only used as time frame during which the patient will be alive with or without symptoms of the disease.

The worst prognosis is for patients in advanced stages of the disease, those who cannot be operated because of other comorbidities and patients who simply do not react to any available treatment modality. On the other hand, the best prognosis is related to patients whose disease has been found in early stage and those with specific type of the tumor.