After a feature ran claiming that people were less likely to see their GP over mouth cancer symptoms than they were bladder cancer, the founder and director of charity Fight Bladder Cancer Bladder, Andrew Winterbottom, got in touch.
Andrew's charity has been fighting a battle to make people aware of the symptoms of bladder cancer, and in the area of bladder cancer, survival rates are getting worse.
Talking about the reality of bladder cancer in the UK, Andrew said: "Shockingly, bladder cancer is the seventh most common cancer (in fact, the 4th most common for men) with over 10,000 people diagnosed with it every year in the UK alone.
![bladder pain]()
"Over 5,000 people in this country lose their lives to this little discussed disease every year. That’s more people than are affected by many well known cancers, including leukaemia, kidney cancer, ovarian cancer, liver cancer, pancreatic cancer, cervical cancer and brain tumours."
The problem with bladder cancer, says Andrew, it that it has the highest recurrence rate of any cancer and is the most expensive for the NHS to treat. To compound this, unlike other cancers which have seen vast injections of money into research, treatments haven't varied much in the last 30 years.
Here Andrew answers some common questions:
Is bladder cancer easy to diagnose?
Bladder cancer is easy to diagnose but most people are not aware of the key symptoms, so don’t go and see their GP as soon as they should. In addition, some of the main symptoms of bladder cancer are also linked with other medical problems, resulting in GPs delaying the referral of patients on to urology specialists.
This is a particular problem for women, who experience a greater delayed diagnosis. There is also a common misconception that Bladder Cancer only affects older men, but many younger people, of both sexes and all ages, do also get it.
What are the main symptoms people might experience?
The main symptom of bladder cancer is blood in your wee. This is from very obvious symptoms (a lot of blood making your wee look very red) to much smaller, microscopic amounts, that can only be detected by testing.
Other symptoms can include pain when weeing, needing to wee frequently, urinary infections that keep coming back or prove to be very hard to treat with antibiotics, tiredness and abdominal pain.
Do you think people just aren’t going to the doctor in time?
Many men do fail to see their doctors at the first sign of blood in their wee. They often dismiss it as a “one off” or put it down to something like lifting something heavy or ‘working too hard’.
![bladder pain]()
One of the postcards Fight Bladder Cancer produces to create awareness
Older men, who are at the biggest risk of having bladder cancer often believe that it is part and parcel of getting older, and can suffer for months without seeing their doctor.
The difference between being diagnosed early or late with Bladder Cancer can be significant. Caught early, while the cancer is still on the lining of the bladder, you can expect to have up to an 80% survival rate for the first five years. This can decrease to less than 15% if the cancer is caught late and has started to spread through the wall of the bladder into other organs.
What needs to be done to raise awareness?
Firstly, we need to make sure that people start to talk about bladder cancer. Every day, 28 people are diagnosed with bladder cancer in the UK alone, and almost none of them will have ever heard about this common cancer when they are diagnosed.
We also need to raise awareness within the medical profession and dispel the notion that it is an “old man’s disease” so they are quicker to refer women with blood in their wee or those patients who have recurrent UTIs.
For more information visit Fight Bladder Cancer.
Andrew's charity has been fighting a battle to make people aware of the symptoms of bladder cancer, and in the area of bladder cancer, survival rates are getting worse.
Talking about the reality of bladder cancer in the UK, Andrew said: "Shockingly, bladder cancer is the seventh most common cancer (in fact, the 4th most common for men) with over 10,000 people diagnosed with it every year in the UK alone.
"Over 5,000 people in this country lose their lives to this little discussed disease every year. That’s more people than are affected by many well known cancers, including leukaemia, kidney cancer, ovarian cancer, liver cancer, pancreatic cancer, cervical cancer and brain tumours."
The problem with bladder cancer, says Andrew, it that it has the highest recurrence rate of any cancer and is the most expensive for the NHS to treat. To compound this, unlike other cancers which have seen vast injections of money into research, treatments haven't varied much in the last 30 years.
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Here Andrew answers some common questions:
Is bladder cancer easy to diagnose?
Bladder cancer is easy to diagnose but most people are not aware of the key symptoms, so don’t go and see their GP as soon as they should. In addition, some of the main symptoms of bladder cancer are also linked with other medical problems, resulting in GPs delaying the referral of patients on to urology specialists.
This is a particular problem for women, who experience a greater delayed diagnosis. There is also a common misconception that Bladder Cancer only affects older men, but many younger people, of both sexes and all ages, do also get it.
Story continues below the slideshow:
What are the main symptoms people might experience?
The main symptom of bladder cancer is blood in your wee. This is from very obvious symptoms (a lot of blood making your wee look very red) to much smaller, microscopic amounts, that can only be detected by testing.
Other symptoms can include pain when weeing, needing to wee frequently, urinary infections that keep coming back or prove to be very hard to treat with antibiotics, tiredness and abdominal pain.
Do you think people just aren’t going to the doctor in time?
Many men do fail to see their doctors at the first sign of blood in their wee. They often dismiss it as a “one off” or put it down to something like lifting something heavy or ‘working too hard’.
Older men, who are at the biggest risk of having bladder cancer often believe that it is part and parcel of getting older, and can suffer for months without seeing their doctor.
The difference between being diagnosed early or late with Bladder Cancer can be significant. Caught early, while the cancer is still on the lining of the bladder, you can expect to have up to an 80% survival rate for the first five years. This can decrease to less than 15% if the cancer is caught late and has started to spread through the wall of the bladder into other organs.
What needs to be done to raise awareness?
Firstly, we need to make sure that people start to talk about bladder cancer. Every day, 28 people are diagnosed with bladder cancer in the UK alone, and almost none of them will have ever heard about this common cancer when they are diagnosed.
We also need to raise awareness within the medical profession and dispel the notion that it is an “old man’s disease” so they are quicker to refer women with blood in their wee or those patients who have recurrent UTIs.
For more information visit Fight Bladder Cancer.