Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 August 2009
Imaging has a well-established role in the pre-treatment assessment of bladder cancer. Staging of muscle invasive tumors with CT or MRI is accurate and has an immediate effect on treatment decisions [1–3]. However, the role of imaging in monitoring the effects of treatment and in the follow-up of the treated patient is less well defined.
This chapter will consider the role of imaging in the diagnosis of treatment-related complications, the recognition of normal post-treatment tissue appearances and the assessment of treatment response as well as the role of imaging in patient follow-up and the diagnosis of local tumor recurrence.
Although a small number of patients have other pathologies, the vast majority of bladder cancers are transitional cell carcinomas (TCC), and this chapter will focus solely on this tumor type. The choice of treatment modality in bladder cancer is dependent on many factors; the most important are the stage and histological grade of the tumor, but other important factors include the patient's performance status and co-morbidities, patient preference and the preference and expertise of the treatment center. There are large geographical variations in treatment preferences; in particular, patients with muscle invasive tumors are more likely to be treated with radiotherapy in the UK, compared with the United States.
Imaging following surgery
Transurethral resection and biopsy
Over 80% of bladder cancer patients have superficial (non–muscle invasive) tumors. These patients are usually treated by transurethral resection of the bladder tumor (TURBT).
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.