Bladder Cancer Staging
Bladder cancer is staged based on the degree (or depth) of involvement of bladder wall with cancerous growth and whether or not the cancer has spread beyond the bladder to surrounding organs and lymph nodes (metastatic disease).
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Ta = low risk bladder cancer that is limited to urothelium
T1 = bladder cancer invading the submucosa
T2 = bladder cancer invading the muscle layer of the bladder
T3 = bladder cancer invading beyond the muscle of the bladder
T4 = bladder cancer invading adjacent organs
T1 high grade tumors often behave similar to T2 tumors and are treated similarly.
CIS is considered a high risk tumor due to high risk of progression to more invasive disease
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