Bladder Cancer

[sheridan]

Today I am having the fourth of 6 BCG treatments and am hoping and praying that they will work this time. I don't want to have the bladder removal surgery and all the life changes that entails. I am a 68 year old man and not ready to retire. I am now in a group of men who have had the surgery and seem OK and beginning to ask them the hard questions - control of urine, lack of sexual feeling, etc. This after reading or hearing very negative stories of bladder removal for men.

Sheridan

[archrock]

I assume they didn't work before. Did you have to have a second surgery?

[sheridan]

I have had BCG before and it worked for a time. I had tumors removed in late 2003 and the second cancer - carcinoma in situ- came in mid 2005 and again mid 2006 and was again back in September of this year. today I had the 5th treatment in the series of 6 and I am hoping that it works.

SHERIDAN

[mibrahim2000]

Hellow Sir,
has your doctor considered mitomycin instead of BCG? Have you had any difficulties, pain, blood, or other symptoms associated with BCG treatment. I have a recurrent case. I am afraid of BCG. I have alreADY HAD 2 mitomycin treatments but they were not effective in preventing recurrence. I do not know whether further experiments with mitomycin is better than experminiting with BCG which is supposed to be a more painful drug. Any thoughts on this matter will be appreciated.

[cgb]

Hi, Sheridan. My doctor is employing mitomycin, and I will get my first dosage tonight after my TURB. I've gone on various sites to find comparisons between BCG amd mitomycin, and from what I've read the clinical results with BCG were superior to those of mitomycin, but then I found something that said if the bladder is completely voided or emptied prior to the insertion of mitomycin, then the latter has some pretty good results.

[mibrahim2000]

from mibrahim2000
One of the doctors who treated me said that although mitomycin is slightly less effective than BCG it has less side effects and more people can tolerate it and he prefers it to BCG. He is a urologists. An oncologyst told me that BCG is the drug of choice for treating my case. My current doctor, a urologist is less inclined to use BCG because he said its side effects are quite bothersome to patients. I do not know what these side effects are. my case is TA tumor which supposed to be very superficial.

Also my doctor told me that my case can be neglected because it very rarely develops into cancer according to one of the studies he read in the American Urology Association conference last year or the year before.

As such I am less inclined to go for BCG, but I had 6 or 7 recurences so far and I do not want to keep having an encoscopy every 3 months.

I am a bit confused to say the least!

[archrock]

I had 5 of 6 BCG treatments and was constantly sick for the last 3 with Pneumonia and flulike syptoms. My Urologist stopped the treatments while I recovered from the Pneumonia and I went to an infectious discease specialist who put me on prednisone for 2 weeks and 6 months of Isoniazid, an anti-TB drug. I have had a cystology which was negative, another CTscan which was negative and then went to hospital for new biopsies, which were also negative. I will have another in office cysto the first week in February and then will probably start BCG again. The infectious discease doctor feels that by using the Isoniazide I will better tolerate the BCG and since it is more effective than the other cancer drug, it would be a better option.