I've had 6 TURB's and about the same number of cystos over the past 20 months. Following a truly torturous round of BCG in mid 2007, the CIS did not reappear but we had a few papillary tumors pop up which had to be scraped/burned out during TURB's. The extreme inflammation gave way to milder but chronic inflammation with chronic dyslpasia (atypical cells) which has persisted until now. We tried Mytomycin C last Summer but my reaction was even worse than it had been to BCG the prior year. My last cysto was back in November which only showed some inflamation so we did another TURB on 12/12 to obtain a biopsy. All five biopsies showed inflamed and irregular, "crowded" cells but no cancer cells.
To finally get to the point, even though the BCG, MMC, cystos and TURB's (about 3-5 months apart) took a heavy toll in terms of inflammation and persistent UTI's which continue till this day, I've had no recurrences of CIS and no papillary for the past 9 months so I would conclude that all the pain, bleeding and discomfort have paid off.
Sorry to have been so long winded. Good luck to each of you and your cystos. Continual vigilence is the price we all pay for peace of mind.
Good to hear from you, Ro. When you forget all about a cysto appointment, things must be looking up. Try not to work too hard.
David
