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Below, week by week, is what OnCo's record of Non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer says about the first two months: the order is typical, the timing is yours to ask about. Most bladder cancers are found while still confined to the lining. They are scraped out through the urethra and, when higher risk, treated with BCG instilled into the bladder; the challenge is the frequent recurrences and the patients whose tumours stop responding to BCG. Sections appear only where the record has something to say. Orientation, not medical advice.
Staging tests establish exactly what and where the cancer is. Everything else follows from the answers.
Cystoscopy, transurethral resection with muscle in the specimen, blue-light or enhanced imaging for carcinoma in situ; re-resection of T1 tumours.
Ask which of these were tested and what the results were; see the report reader for what each value means.
These specialties appear in the standard of care for this cancer. In most centres they meet weekly as a tumour board to agree each plan; you can ask when yours was discussed and what was decided.
A second opinion from a centre that treats many similar cases is normal, not rude; the standard of care tells you what to compare it against.
Each row is a setting from the standard of care, in the order it usually arises. Not all will apply to you; your stage and biomarkers decide which do. The guideline grade, where recorded, says how strong the evidence is.
Single immediate instillation of mitomycin or gemcitabine after resection; surveillance cystoscopy.
Induction and one to three years of maintenance BCG; intravesical chemotherapy when BCG is unavailable; early cystectomy for the highest-risk T1 disease.
Radical cystectomy, or bladder-sparing treatment: pembrolizumab, nadofaragene firadenovec, nogapendekin alfa inbakicept with BCG, TAR-200, cretostimogene in trials and early approvals.
Generated from this cancer's standard of care, biomarkers and open problems. Take the group that matches where you are. To tick, add your own and print, open the one-page appointment sheet.
Trials open now for this cancer in OnCo, largest phase first. Joining a trial is a decision like any other: ask what the comparison arm is, whether a placebo is used, and what happens if you leave. The cancer page searches ClinicalTrials.gov live for more.
Much of what helps in the first weeks is free if you know to ask: testing, helplines, rides and lodging, second opinions, trial travel.
Every term links to the glossary.