Shedding Light on Bladder Cancer

Reported October 2005

ROCHESTOR, N.Y. (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- The earlier the better, when it comes to detecting cancer. Now, doctors are shedding new light on detecting the deadly disease. Currently, 400-000 people suffer from it while 60,000 more will find out they have it, and bladder cancer usually strikes more than once.

Larry Sylvan, a cancer survivor, says, "At nine months it was back." He knows what it's like to battle bladder cancer. Sylvan's doctor, Edward Messing, M.D., says, "The surgery was successful; I got everything I could see." The doctor's key word -- see; some bladder cancer tumors are so small, surgeons can't see them.

Dr. Messing, a urologist at the James P. Wilmot Cancer Center in Rochester, N.Y., says, "Before it was sort of blind guessing." A new photo-sensitizer, a liquid dye inserted into the bladder, improves detection of those small tumors. Under ordinary light, everything looks fine, but when the florescent light is turned on, the entire background looks blue, except where the tumor is -- that shows up bright red.

Jerry Gulette was one of the first patients to use the dye. He's battled bladder cancer time and time again. Dr. Messing says, "I had seen maybe four, five tumors when I cystoscoped him with the white light. And when we turned on this pink light there were 12 or 13."

More than 94 percent of the people diagnosed with bladder cancer will survive it if it's caught in the early stages. That's why this new procedure is so critical for those diagnosed.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Wilmot Cancer Center
Rochester, NY
(585) 275-2100

To register for clinical trials in your area, please contact:

Cancer Information Service
(800) 422-6237
TTY (800) 332-8615



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