Symptoms

People with bladder cancer may experience the following symptoms. Sometimes, people with bladder cancer do not show any of these symptoms. Or, these symptoms may be caused by a medical condition that is not cancer. Bladder cancer usually does not cause symptoms that specifically indicate cancer. Most often, bladder cancer is diagnosed when a person tells his or her doctor about hematuria (blood in the urine). General urine tests are not used to make a specific diagnosis of bladder cancer, because hematuria can be a sign of several other conditions besides bladder cancer, such as an infection or kidney stones. One type of urine test that can indicate the presence of cancer is cytology, a test in which the urine is studied under a microscope to look for cancer cells (see Diagnosis).

If you are concerned about a symptom on this list, please talk with your doctor.

• Hematuria
  
  
• Pain during urination
  
  
• Frequent urination
  
  
• Feeling the need to urinate many times throughout the night
  
  
• Feeling the need to urinate, but not being able to pass urine

Symptoms of advanced bladder cancer may include pain, a change in bowel habits, unexplained loss of appetite, and weight loss.

Sometimes when the first symptoms of bladder cancer appear, the cancer has already spread to another part of the body. In this situation, the symptoms depend on where the cancer has spread. For example, cancer that has spread to the lungs may cause a cough or shortness of breath, spread to the liver may cause abdominal pain or jaundice (yellowing of the skin and whites of the eyes), and spread to the bone may cause bone pain or fractures.