One of the earliest and most common signs of bladder cancer is blood in the urine, which may change the urine’s color to orange, pink, or dark red. Sometimes, the blood is only visible under a microscope, and your doctor can find it during routine tests. Blood in the urine isn’t always cancer—urinary infections, kidney stones, or other illnesses can cause it—so it’s important to consider other symptoms too.
Other symptoms include:
- Needing to urinate more often than usual
- Pain or burning when passing urine
- Having frequent bladder infections
- Feeling the urge to urinate, even when the bladder isn’t full
- If the cancer progresses, you may also experience:
- Difficulty urinating or being unable to urinate
- Lower back pain
- Weight loss
- Loss of appetite
- Swollen feet or legs
- Fatigue or weakness
- Bone pain if the disease spreads
How Symptoms Can Be Mistaken
Bladder cancer symptoms can look like those of a bladder infection or urinary tract infection (UTI). UTI symptoms often include cloudy or strong-smelling urine, fever, and pain, which typically improve with antibiotics. Bladder cancer symptoms, especially unexplained blood in the urine without pain, do not go away with usual infection treatments.
Who Is at Risk?
Men are more likely than women to develop bladder cancer. Smoking is the biggest risk factor because harmful chemicals from cigarette smoke end up in the bladder. People exposed to certain chemicals at work and those with a family history of bladder cancer are also at higher risk.
Women sometimes get diagnosed later than men. This is often because blood in the urine could be confused with menstrual or menopausal bleeding.
Symptoms by Stage
As bladder cancer advances, symptoms become more noticeable:
Stage I & II: Blood in urine, frequent urination, pain or burning during urination, urge to urinate without a full bladder, and infections.
Stage III & IV: These symptoms may intensify and include inability to urinate, severe pain, weight loss, swollen feet, tiredness, and symptoms from cancer spread to other organs like coughing or bone pain.
What to Do
See a doctor if you:
- Notice blood in your urine
- Have pain while urinating
- Need to urinate much more often than usual
- Have frequent bladder infections that do not improve with treatment
Many symptoms can be linked to harmless conditions, but it’s important to check them early for proper treatment.
Common Questions
Bladder cancer can spread quickly or slowly, depending on the type. The most common type, urothelial carcinoma, spreads slowly and often comes back after treatment. Most cases can be found by urine tests, and bladder cancer is often curable when detected early.
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