The INTEGRIS Cancer Institute's Multidisciplinary urology clinic brings together physicians including medical oncologists, urologists, radiation oncologists and radiologists to provide specialized care in a multidisciplinary environment.
Your treatment plan will be based on a variety of factors such as age, overall health, medical history and the stage of the disease. Several types of treatment may be used for bladder cancer. Sometimes more than one of these treatments may be used. Getting two or more treatments is called combination treatment and may include:
- Surgery: Surgery is a common treatment for bladder cancer. In some cases, the surgeon removes only the tumor, or tumors. Other times, part of the bladder or the whole bladder may be removed. Sometimes surgery cures the cancer.
- Chemotherapy: Chemotherapy uses strong medicines to kill cancer cells and is often used when bladder cancer has spread to other parts of your body. It may be delivered internally, directly into your bladder (intravesically), or injected into your bloodstream to kill cancer cells throughout your body.
- Intravesical Therapy: This treatment is used to treat early-stage, superficial bladder cancer. During intravesical therapy, medicines are put directly into your bladder. This may be immunotherapy medicines, which make your body’s immune system fight the cancer, or chemotherapy medicines.
- Radiation Therapy: Radiation therapy uses high-energy rays to kill or shrink cancer cells. Internal radiation or external radiation, or both, may be used to treat bladder cancer. Radiation can be given alone or with chemotherapy, which can cure some people and leave them with a bladder that still works.
- Internal Radiation (brachytherapy, implant radiation): A radiation implant is placed into your bladder for a direct effect on cancer cells.
- External Radiation: A machine directs high levels of radiation are directly to the bladder cancer from outside the body.