Defining and Understanding Bladder Cancer

This opening segment introduces low-grade intermediate-risk non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (LG-IR-NMIBC) and establishes the anatomic and diagnostic vocabulary the rest of the program relies on. The faculty open with epidemiology, citing roughly 85,000 new bladder cancer diagnoses each year, bladder cancer as the fourth most common cancer in men, and approximately 750,000 people in the United States currently living with the disease. The panel separates bladder cancer into non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) and muscle invasive bladder cancer (MIBC). To explain the distinction, one panelist walks through bladder anatomy, describing the bladder as an organ whose main job is storing urine, and noting that bladder cancer is commonly associated with environmental exposures because filtered waste from the kidneys sits in the bladder over time. The urothelium is described as the thin watertight lining where most bladder cancers begin, which is why they are called urothelial cancers. Beneath it lies the lamina propria, and past that, the detrusor muscle. The segment closes on diagnostic workup, including urinalysis and a urine culture to exclude urinary tract infection before evaluating for malignancy.