In 1999 approximately 60,000 new cases of bladder cancer were diagnosed in the U.S. Bladder cancer strikes most often among individuals between the ages of 50 and 70. Men are three times more likely to develop bladder cancer than women, and smokers are twice as likely to get bladder cancer as nonsmokers. People living in urban areas and workers exposed to chemicals in the dye, rubber or leather tanning industries are also at higher risk. One in five bladder cancer patients currently die from the disease within five years of initial diagnosis. If detected early, however, bladder cancer can be highly curable.
Gross hematuria is often the first visible sign of the cancer.
Physicians evaluate a patient s medical history and perform a complete medical exam when they test a patient for any type of cancer. A physician may be able to feel a very large tumor during a medical exam, but smaller tumors require medical testing to be found and treated. Several testing types are common when evaluating a patient for the presence of bladder cancer.