When we say that a patient’s cancer has been cured, we mean that the cancer has not returned or metastasized after a period of time.
Most patients are completely cured of their bladder cancer. Low-grade, superficial bladder cancer is cured in a sense when the tumor has been completely removed. Even in patients whose tumors have invaded the bladder muscle, cure is possible. When it is not possible to figure out exactly whether the tumor has been completely removed and whether any tumor cells have spread beyond the bladder, further postoperative radiotherapy can destroy the tiny tumor lesions remaining in the body and improve the cure rate.
However, the problem is that bladder cancer is easy to recur in clinical practice. Even though the tumor has been completely removed, the cancer-causing factors of bladder cancer may still persist in the urine, and the newborn tumor may grow again in the original or other locations, so regular review after surgery is important. Fortunately, most recurrent bladder tumors detected early can still be cured by a combination of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy.