Hi Mark... It doesn't seem that there is enough data on bladder adenocarcimomas to pinpoint a standard protocol, and it will vary per each patient's case. I am basically trusting my uro surgeon's expertise and comfort level since Vanderbilt is a major center for BC. I had 3 cystos at 3 month intervals and a CT scan at the last one in November, then this one which was at 4.5 months.
Even though my tumor had invaded into the muscle layer, there was no lymph involvement per the path report and no mets detected on my initial CT scan. The bladder wall at the tumor site was resected with two clean margins, and no followup treatment required. Fortunately mine was fairly small and at the bladder dome which made it possible to do a partial cystectomy. The stats are that less than 2% of all BC's are adenocarcinomas. I read that of those 2% of patients, less than 5% meet the criteria for partial cystectomies, so not a lot of case studies available. I feel extremely fortunate at this point and hope things continue to go well.
He also said that if the next cysto and CT scan in October were clean, we can relax the monitoring a bit. That will be at the 20 month mark and I'm not sure what that will look like. It will have to be something I am comfortable with as well.
