Overview
The urinary bladder is a muscular organ in the lower abdominal cavity and its function is to store urine.
The most common type of bladder cancer is urothelial carcinoma, which accounts for approximately 85% of all bladder cancers.
Other types of bladder cancer include squamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma. These types of cancer only account for a small percentage of bladder cancers (1-2%), but are aggressive (grow quickly).
Bladder cancer can be either:
Non-muscular-invasive bladder cancer – where cancer cells are only found in superficial inner layers
Muscular-invasive bladder cancer – where cancer cells have spread beyond the first two layers of the bladder into the muscle layer or into nearby tissue.