Open Access

ARTICLE

Metastatic cancer involving bladder: a review

Vamsidhar Velcheti¹, Ramaswamy Govindan^1,2

1 Division of Oncology, Department of Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
2 Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
Address correspondence to Dr. Ramaswamy Govindan, Division of Medical Oncology, Washington University School of Medicine, 660 South Euclid Avenue, Campus Box 8056, St Louis, MO 63110 USA

Canadian Journal of Urology 2007, 14(1), 3443-3448.

Abstract

Purpose: Bladder cancer is the fourth most common cancer in men and the ninth most common cancer in women. Bladder is not a common site for metastasis of cancer and often goes undiagnosed in the clinical follow up of patients with cancer. We reviewed the literature for published reports on metastatic cancer involving bladder.
Materials and methods: We searched MEDLINE, PubMed and OVID from 1953 to June 2005 for published reports on metastatic cancer involving bladder. The key words used were bladder, cancer and metastatic. A total of 2405 abstracts were reviewed. All relevant articles reporting metastatic cancer to the bladder were selected.
Results: We found 264 cases of metastasis to the bladder from various primary foci. We found that a majority of these malignancies had primary foci in the genitourinary tract and the colon and rectum. Of the malignancies arising from distant foci, melanomas appear to be the most common followed by breast and gastric carcinoma.
Conclusions: The definitive diagnosis of metastatic bladder cancers is often difficult, and poses a significant challenge to the physician, pathologist and the radiologist alike. Bladder adenocarcinomas are uncommon and any adenocarcinoma of the bladder should be viewed with a high index of suspicion for a metastatic cancer from a distant focus.

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Keywords

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