What are some of the biggest challenges you face in caring for patients with bladder cancer?
One of the biggest challenges is getting patients into the clinic. Any patient with visible or microscopic blood in the urine should talk to their primary provider or urologist about it. Blood in the urine is never normal and can be the first sign of bladder cancer.
There have been some promising developments in bladder cancer management in the past several years. What should patients be aware of?
We are always pursuing methods for bladder cancer mangement that allow patients to maintain quality of life and ideally have minimal impact from a bladder cancer diagnosis. Recent additions to the toolkit include Adstiladrin which is a new type of intravesical treatment for patients who have failed BCG therapy. Continued refinement in robotic surgical technique have allowed us to perform intracorporeal urinary diversions to reduce hospital stays and postop pain in patients requiring cystectomy (bladder removal surgery). For patients with more advanced bladder cancers, the use of immunotherapy continues to revolutionize treatment of recurrent or chemotherapy ineligible disease.
What inspires your work as a urologic oncologist?
Caring for patients with urologic cancers allows me to have a long term and meaningful relationship with my patients. Although surgery is a major early event in managing these patients, the surveillance after and continued interval touch points allow me to become part of their lives for years to come.
As we honor Bladder Cancer Awareness Month, what do you want our patients and families to pause and remember?
Bladder cancer is one of the many cancers that is often curable in the early stages but can be more complicated and difficult to manage at later stages. Any blood in the urine especially in a patient with risk factors like smoking history or certain occupation exposures should be evaluated by a urologist. I encourage patients to take a bladder cancer diagnosis seriously and to understand that this is a survivable disease where patients can maintain a high quality of life.