If you have bladder cancer, will any given urine sample reveal microscopic traces of blood?
Bladder cancer can cause bleeding. The blood can sometimes be visible in the urine stream or toilet bowl. This is called gross hematuria.
However, if it’s not visible to the naked eye, it can still be detected via urinalysis.
The question then becomes whether or not it would always show in a urine sample, once the tumor starts causing any degree of bleeding.
“Not necessarily,” begins Kiarash Michel, MD, a urologic oncological surgeon with Cedars Sinai who specializes in robotic surgery, and is cofounder of MDbio, a plant-based medicine company.
Dr. Michel explains, “While bladder cancer is a common cause of blood in the urine of otherwise healthy patients, it may not be detectable in every urinalysis and depends largely on the stage of cancer, the type of cancer and especially how much cancer has affected the structure of the bladder.
“Hematuria (blood in the urine) caused by bladder cancer stems from the hemorrhaging of tumors on the inner lining of the bladder.
“The severity of the bleeding may be affected by the proximity of the tumor to blood vessels and how invasive the tumor is (how deep it goes into the bladder tissue).
“However, hematuria may also be caused by sloughing of tumor mass, side effects from radiation therapy, cyclophosphamide-induced hemorrhagic cystitis [bladder inflammation], or other sources such as prostate cancer or a severe infection.”
Bladder cancer graphic. Cancer Research UK uploader, CC BY-SA 4.0; creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Dr. Michel is a leading physician in prostate cancer therapy, urological cancers, benign prostatic hyperplasia, female urology, urinary disorders, incontinence, erectile dysfunction, stone diseases and anti-aging. MDbio provides safe non-pharmaceutical alternatives to maximizing overall health and wellbeing.
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
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