size of tumor

Sara Anne Thank you for the advice. I'll have my daughter drive me for the first time. She will glad to do it for me. I will take plenty of old towels ! I feel less anxious already. I am so grateful to have found this forum. It helps to know your not alone and others can help by sharing their stories.

Sylvia - you should definitely ask your urologist to interpret this with certainty, but for what it is worth, it sounds like your tumor was 4 millimeters by 4 millimeters by 3 millimeters in size; by contrast, mine was 17 X 14 X 11, much larger by volume. The report suggests that they can't rule out invasion of the lamina propria which is the layer of the bladder right below the epithelia cells; invasion of the lamina propria would stage your cancer as T1, no invasion means superficial Ta. The fact that there was no muscle tissue present indicates that the urologist did not "dig deep enough" to get any; that is what happened to me as well on my first TURBT. Second TURBT he "dug deeper" and got muscle tissue so that the pathologist could look for evidence of cancer cells in that tissue - which would make the staging T2.

Bottom line is that as Sara Anne said, BCG is exactly the right treatment here since you have CIS and high grade. Needless to say, best of luck to you; I also start BCG next week, we can compare notes.

Thank you for your response Sara Anne.....I forgot to mention that I will also be getting interferon in my treatments. Will I get sick from the treatments? Do l need a driver to take me? I am an hour away from the hospital.

My recent pathology report stated ....high grade papillary urotheleal carcinoma.......laminar invasion cannot be excluded with certainty......flat urotheleal carcinoma in-site.....follicular cystitis.......muscular is propaganda not present for evaluation......0.4 times 0.4 times 0.3 cm. I am to start BCG in 3 weeks......This is my third experience with bladder cancer ,the last being a small spot 5 years ago that was removed with no following treatments ,just follow ups. I am a 76 yr. old female. I'm don't completely understand the report or the size of the tumor. I am a little anxious about this report and would appreciate any or all feedback. l receive all my medical attention at the Cleveland Clinic which is number 2 in Urology.