It is absolutely not acceptable to have the initial TURBT 2 months after cystoscopy.
Usually it is done a week or two weeks after cystoscopy.
The strategy for bladder cancer patients or any cancer patients is prevent metastasis.
Once the cancer spreads to other key organs. the 5 survival rate drops to less than 10%.
We still depend upon seeing the blood in urine (hematuria) as the main diagnosis tool
for predicting bladder cancer. Actually 8%% of people diagnosed with bladder cancer
were diagnosed after they saw they experienced hematuria.
Unfortunately, by the type people are diagnosed with bladder cancer, 5% are already metastasized
and 20% have their bladder cancer progressed to the muscle layer in the bladder wall. Once the cancer
progresses to the muscle layer, the chances of metastasis increases before there are many blood vessels
and lymphatic vessels in the bladder muscle tissue through which the cancer cells can move to
other organs. How deep the cancer progressed in the muscle layer is expressed as T2a T2b T3a T3b T4.
The cancer at T2a,T2b.T3a,T3b is still contained in the bladder, the chance of metastasis increases as the cancer
progresses deeper in the muscle layer. This is because the deeper the cancer progressed, the longer the cancer
was given a chance for metastasis. So, the earlier the bladder removed, the longer survival the patient can expect,
i.e. see the attached graph from 2018 Urotoday journal.
70-75% of patients are diagnosed as non-muscle bladder cancer, such that the cancer has not progressed to the muscle layer. But 20-20% are diagnosed as high risk non muscle bladder cancers, which include T1HG (high grade) or CIS (carcinoma insitu). In both cases, if the cancer treatment is provided early enough, it is possible to prevent the cancer to progress to the muscle layer.
So, it is so important that TURBT is done asap after cystoscopy. The goal of TURBT is not only remove the tumor but also provides
tumor tissue samples to a pathologist so the pathologist can determine, if the tumor has already progressed to the muscle layer, or if it has progressed to the connective tissue (T1) or the cancer has just stayed at the surface of the lining of the bladder. Also the pathologist can look at cancer cells and determine if it is an aggressive type cancer or non-aggressive cancer. If it is aggressive type of cancer, the earlier the treatment is given, the higher chance the cancer can be stopped from progressing further.
Very experienced urologists often tell how bad the cancer is by looking the cancer during cystoscopy. But, there are always exceptions.
I have known some patients whose cancer progressed so rapidly and metastasized multiple organs only a few months after the patient was diagnosed with bladder cancer. I always wonder if each steps from hematuria, cystoscopy, TURBT, pathology, imagines including such as pet scan were done timely, the stages of bladder cancer could have been identified early and the appropriate treatment was giving on time, the patient could have better chance. So two months counts in this kind of situation.
If it is really difficult to have timely TURBT, you may want to ask urine analysis such as cytology, uroVysion, cxBladder as those urine analysis can find out if the tumor is high risk (HG and CIS) or not. If it is high risk tumor, then TURBT should be done ASAP.
Incidentally, TURBT is one of the most important steps in the treatment for non-muscle invasive bladder cancer, so preferably the urologist has years of experience in TURBT, best
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRepI5sW000125qYtXQTexsZo9q9_apmtAMhOehNyeHIJ9cd82Tt0LT-RxTqti5QcFd5b0&usqp=CAU
www.cancer.org/cancer/bladder-cancer/detection-diagnosis-staging/survival-rates.html