Bladder Cancer Symptoms

Bladder cancer is the 6th most common cancer in America. This is a heterogeneous disease. There are multiple stages, grades, and subtypes of bladder cancer, so it truly involves multiple specialties.

There are several bladder cancer symptoms. The most common presenting sign or bladder cancer symptom is blood in the urine that you can see, also known as hematuria. This most often occurs without other symptoms and without warning and can be painless or can occur with pain. Less frequently, but certainly not uncommon, are patients who do experience painful urination and increased urinary frequency and are incorrectly treated for recurrent urinary tract infections, but in fact have a bladder cancer.

Other bladder cancer symptoms you may experience are changes in your urination pattern or your voiding habits, back pain due to blockage of urine flow to the bladder from the kidney, flank pain, weight loss, or fatigue.

Basically, a change in your baseline from your usual urinary symptoms that happens over a relatively short period of time can signify bladder cancer. It’s tough to determine if basic changes in urinary habits and symptoms that occur are due to age, but blood in the urine is by far the most common symptom of bladder cancer.