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Men and Women have differences in their bladders
Link to video with a text of the video. Here is an excerpt from the text. Interview w/ Dr. Bela Denes
Do men or women have a better chance of surviving bladder cancer?
Statistics would show that men have survival rates that are 5 to 10 percent higher than for women. It is not clear why this is but the prevailing thoughts are that women tend to be diagnosed a little bit later. There tends to be a delay in diagnosis due to a number of factors, such as being treated for bladder infections. Also, the male and female bladder are slightly different anatomically. When you look at the bladders side by side or microscopically, they have the same type of cells in the same number of layers. The female bladder is much thinner than the male bladder, especially in its muscular wall. Once the tumor reaches the muscle, it’s easy for it to penetrate to the outside, so the fact that the female bladder tends to be significantly thinner than the comparable male bladder may be an easier progression for the bladder tumor.
This sure seems like it must be a major factor in the defference in survival rates. This article mentions a 5 to 10% difference but my calculations when you look at the number of men and women who are diagnosed each year and the number of men and women who die from it each year, the run rate over the last few years comes out to a 4% higher rate for women.
If women have “much thinner” bladders and the rate of growth for a bladder tumor is the same, then the amount of time for a woman to progress from one T stage to the next would be significantly less than for a man.
If we follow that logic, it would seem to be a logical conclusion for the recommendation to be that for a woman with symptoms to ALWAYS get referred to a urologist rather than accepting a GP’s or GYN’s opinion regarding UTIs or blood in the urine.
Mike
P.S: I did some searching and found a study on bladder thickness and men’s bladder are generally 0.3mm thicker than women’s bladders. Men with enlarged prostate BPE or LUTS generally have even thicker bladders. Bladder wall thickness increases slightly with age in both sexes equally.
Link to the study. (BWT means Bladder Wall Thickness).
Mean BWT was 3.04 mm in healthy women, 3.33 mm in healthy men, and 3.67 mm in men with LUTS and BPE. Sub-dividing normal men into different age groups showed an increasing mean BWT of 3.08 mm (<20 years, n = 27), 3.25 mm (21–40 years, n = 75), 3.42 mm (41–60 years, n = 39), and 3.57 mm (>60 years, n = 31) for those sub-groups. BWT in normal adult women is 3.0 ± 1 mm and 3.3 ± 1.1 mm in normal adult men.
So if I interpret this data correctly, women’s bladder are 10% thinner than men’s. The difference would be even greater when compared to men with enlarged prostate (which is very common starting around age 40).
Age 54
10/31/06 dx CIS (TisG3) non-invasive (at 47)
9/19/08 TURB/TUIP dx Invasive T2G3
10/8/08 RC neobladder(at 49)
2/15/13 T4G3N3M1 distant metastases(at 53)
9/2013 finished chemo -cancer free again
1/2014 ct scan results….distant mets
2/2014 ct result…spread to liver, kidneys, and lymph system
My opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinion of ABLCS or anyone else. I am not a doctor nor do I play one on TV.1 Reply-
Personally i think the variable here is the expertise of the surgeon…but they’re not going to say that are they?
pat
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