Below I have pasted the Treatment Options for People with Bladder Cancer. You may visit a website called People Living With Cancer at http://www.plwc.org for more information. It is a Fantastic Website. Click on Cancers & then on Bladder Cancer. Hope this information helps you! Best of luck.
Through ongoing research, the medications used to treat cancer are constantly being evaluated in different combinations and to treat different cancers. Talking with your doctor is often the best way to learn about the medications you've been prescribed, their purpose, and their potential side effects or interactions. For more information, see Drug Information Resources.
The treatment of bladder cancer depends on the size and location of the tumor, whether the cancer has spread, and the person's overall health. In many cases, a team of doctors will work with the patient to determine the best treatment plan. Early stage cancers can often be treated locally (treatments that just involve the bladder) without removing the whole bladder.
More advanced cancers often need systemic chemotherapy, or drugs that circulate through the body to kill cancer cells. In advanced bladder cancer, it may or may not be possible to save the bladder during surgery.
Surgery
Transurethral resection of the bladder (TURB) with fulguration. This procedure is often used with early stage cancers. The surgeon inserts a cystoscope through the urethra into the bladder and removes the cancer using a tool with a small wire loop or burns the tumor with a laser or fulguration (high-energy electricity). This procedure is done under anesthetic so that it is not painful.
Cystectomy. This procedure is often used with more advanced (deeply invasive) cancer, or recurrent, superficial cancer. In a radical cystectomy, a surgeon removes the whole bladder and may also remove nearby tissue and organs. In men, the prostate and urethra may be removed. In women, the uterus, fallopian tubes, ovaries, and part of the vagina may be removed. In men or women, lymph nodes in the pelvis may also be removed. This is called a pelvic lymph node dissection.
If possible, the surgeon will remove just part of the bladder, called a partial cystectomy. Advances in chemotherapy are making this option more common, and new surgical techniques to preserve part of the bladder can help make patients more comfortable.
Urinary diversion. If the bladder is removed, the doctor will make a new way for the body to eliminate the urine by using a section of the small intestine to divert urine to a stoma or ostomy (an opening) to the outside of the body. The patient wears a bag attached to the stoma to collect and drain urine.
Sometimes surgeons can make a urinary reservoir, a storage pouch that sits inside the body. They create this using a part of the intestine. In some cases, particularly in men, the surgeon connects the pouch to the urethra, creating a neobladder, in which case, the patient can void (eliminate urine) normally. In other cases, the pouch is connected to the skin on the abdomen by a small stoma creating a type of continent urinary reservoir. Thus, no urinary pad is necessary. The patient drains the pouch periodically by inserting a catheter through the small stoma and then removing the catheter and covering the stoma with a bandage.
The side effects of bladder cancer surgery depend on the procedure. Patients should discuss the details of their surgery with their doctor to understand exactly what side effects may occur. In general:
Transurethral resection may cause mild bleeding and discomfort after surgery.
Patients following cystectomy and urinary diversion surgery may experience infections or urine leaks and may be unable to urinate or completely empty the bladder.
Men may be unable to have erections after surgery.
Long-term side effects of surgery
Sometimes surgery damages the nerves in the pelvis and causes impotence in men and loss of sexual feeling and orgasm for both men and women. Often, these problems can be fixed. Most people do not experience any long-term side effects from chemotherapy, but some people are bothered by symptoms for months and even years. Patients should talk with their doctor about any side effects they are experiencing.
Radiation therapy
Radiation therapy is the use of high-energy x-rays or other particles to kill cancer cells. The most common type of radiation treatment is called external-beam radiation therapy, which is radiation therapy given from a machine outside the body. When radiation treatment is given using implants, it is called internal radiation therapy.
Doctors may use radiation therapy to treat bladder cancer at all stages:
Before surgery, to shrink a tumor
After surgery, to destroy any tumor left behind
To relieve symptoms such as pain, bleeding, or blockage
Radiation therapy can cause side effects near the area being treated. In bladder cancer, side effects occur in the pelvic or abdominal area, and may include:
Patches of skin that look sunburned
Bladder irritation with the need to pass urine frequently during the treatment period
Fatigue
Nausea
Diarrhea
Hair loss around the area treated
Stomach cramps
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy is the use of drugs to kill cancer cells. For bladder cancer, doctors may decide to use one of two types of chemotherapy: intravesical (local) or systemic (whole body) treatment. In general, earlier cancers are more likely to be treated with local chemotherapy and more advanced cancers with systemic chemotherapy.
Intravesical chemotherapy. Drugs are placed into the bladder through a catheter (a thin tube temporarily put into a large vein to make injections easier) inserted through the urethra. Local treatment kills only superficial tumor cells. It cannot reach tumor cells in the bladder wall or growths that have spread to other organs. The most common drug that is given in intravesical treatment is an immunotherapy drug called BCG (described below). Intravesical therapy can cause bladder irritation, bladder infections, inability to urinate, or blood in the urine. Rarely, patients experience fevers or chills.
Systemic chemotherapy. Patients receive drugs orally or intravenously (IV). IV chemotherapy is either injected directly into a vein or through a catheter. The drugs enter the bloodstream and travel to all parts of the body. Since most chemotherapy drugs kill some healthy cells as well as cancer cells, side effects are common. Most side effects can be treated with medications, and go away after treatment is over. Side effects of systemic chemotherapy can include nausea and vomiting, loss of appetite, hair loss, mouth sores, anemia (low blood cell count), fatigue, bleeding or bruising after minor injuries, and increased chance of infection.
In bladder cancer, most chemotherapy drugs are still being tested in clinical trials to help determine which ones, or which combinations, work the best in treating bladder cancer. Of the known drugs, usually a combination of drugs works better than one drug alone.
A combination of drugs called MVAC has been used as the standard treatment for bladder cancer for many years. MVAC has been useful in bladder cancer in delaying recurrence and extending life, but it has severe side effects. Other drugs are now in clinical trials to determine if there is a combination of drugs that works better and has fewer side effects. MVAC uses four drugs: methotrexate (MTX, Amethopterin), vinblastine (Velban), doxorubicin (Adriamycin), and cisplatin (Platinol). More recent trials have shown that the combination of a newer drug gemcitabine (Gemzar), plus cisplatin (Platinol), gives similar anticancer effects to the MVAC combination but with fewer side effects. Clinical trials are currently studying the benefits and drawbacks of this new combination with the addition of other chemotherapy agents, such as paclitaxel (Taxol), docetaxel (Taxotere), and ifosfamide (Ifex).
Immunotherapy
Immunotherapy uses materials made by the body or in a laboratory to boost patients' natural defenses against cancer. It is also called biologic therapy or biologic response modifier (BRM) therapy. Immunotherapy drugs are given by mouth, or intravenously. However, currently the most common immunotherapy drug for bladder cancer is called BCG. A weakened bacterium called bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG), which is similar to a weak form of the germ that causes tuberculosis, is placed into the bladder through a catheter. BCG irritates the inside of the bladder, thus attracting the patient's immune cells to the bladder to fight the tumor. Immunotherapy can cause flu-like symptoms, chills, mild fever, fatigue, and a burning sensation in the bladder.
Advanced bladder cancer
Advanced bladder cancer refers to cancer that has recurred, or come back, and all other treatments have failed, or cancer that is diagnosed after it has spread beyond the lymph nodes.
For most patients, there are no methods to successfully treat advanced bladder cancer. In these cases, the goal of treatment switches to slowing the spread of cancer, relieving symptoms, and extending life as long as possible. With advances in treatment, most people with advanced bladder cancer can expect to live many months, or even years—longer than they could just a few years ago.
Since there are relatively few treatment options for advanced bladder cancer, clinical trials are often the best option for treatment. Clinical trials compare the best treatments available (standard treatments) with newer treatments that may be more effective. Investigating new treatments involves careful monitoring using scientific methods and all participants are followed closely to track progress. The following are some areas of clinical research:
Chemotherapy for locally advanced bladder cancer
Researchers are studying new combinations of chemotherapy drugs that are more effective in managing bladder cancer. Treatments may include:
One chemotherapy drug (called single agent therapy)
Combinations of different drugs
Known drugs tested in different doses
Drugs or drug combinations given before or after surgery
Drugs or drug combinations given along with radiation therapy. If radiation therapy is combined with chemotherapy, it may make chemotherapy drugs more effective through an effect called radiosensitizing.
Recently, an important randomized trial has shown that the use of intravenous chemotherapy (the MVAC regimen, mentioned above) before radical cystectomy improves survival for patients with invasive bladder cancer. It appears that this type of initial chemotherapy, termed neoadjuvant chemotherapy, shrinks the tumor within the bladder and may also kill small metastatic deposits that have spread beyond the bladder.
Chemotherapy for metastatic bladder cancer
Currently, the standard treatment for metastatic bladder cancer is a combination of drugs called MVAC. MVAC shows benefit in extending life for people with advanced bladder cancer, but the side effects can be severe. As mentioned above, other drugs are now in clinical trials to determine if there is a combination of drugs that works better and has fewer side effects. More recent trials have shown that the combination of a newer drug, gemcitabine, plus cisplatin, gives similar anticancer effects to the MVAC combination but with fewer side effects. Clinical trials are currently studying the benefits and drawbacks of this new combination with the addition of other chemotherapy agents, such as paclitaxel, docetaxel, and ifosfamide.
Bladder preservation or substitution
Since living without the bladder severely affects a patient's quality of life, finding ways to keep all, or part, of the bladder is important whenever possible, especially for cases when removing the bladder will not extend life.
For some patients, certain chemotherapy and radiation therapy plans may be just as effective as bladder surgery.
As previously discussed, sometimes surgeons can use part of the intestine to create a substitute for the bladder, by making a neobladder or continent urinary reservoir. In this way, the patient does not need a urinary pad and can have a better quality of life.
Sometimes, in men, a nerve-sparing cystectomy can be performed. When this is done successfully, men can have normal erections.
2006-07-17 21:18:37
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answer #1
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answered by pinkribbons&walking4boobies 4
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