Kidney and bladder cancer share similarities due to their role in waste removal, but have different causes, diagnostic methods, and symptoms. Treatment options are similar, but success depends on the spread of cancer cells.
Kidney cancer is a disease in which abnormal cells grow inside one of the kidneys, which are mainly responsible for removing waste products from the blood. It has many similarities to bladder cancer, in which abnormal cells multiply uncontrollably inside the bladder, the sac that holds and distributes urine. These similarities may be a result of the two organs working together in the waste removal process. Once the wastes are removed from the blood by the kidneys, they are then moved into the bladder so they can exit the body. While these organs have similar functions and many aspects of the cancers that affect them are similar, there are also key differences between kidney and bladder cancer.
One of the major differences between kidney and bladder cancer is the possible causes of the diseases. While neither of these types of cancer has a proven cause, they each have different risk factors that can increase your chances of developing either disease. Risk factors for kidney cancer include exposure to chemicals such as cadmium and asbestos, long-term kidney dialysis treatment, or kidney-related conditions, such as hereditary papillary renal cell carcinoma or Von Hippel disease -Lindau. A person may be more likely to develop bladder cancer if they get a parasitic infection or are exposed to radiation.
How each disease tends to be diagnosed is also a key difference between kidney and bladder cancer. Kidney cancer is usually only discovered when a person is having diagnostic procedures, such as X-rays or computed tomography (CT) scans, for other conditions. Bladder cancer is also often diagnosed through the use of X-rays or CT scans, but usually the doctor gets the idea that something might be wrong with the bladder, rather than being discovered when a different underlying condition is looked at, such as it can often be the case with kidney cancer.
Since the kidneys and bladder are both involved in removing fluid waste from the body, they share many symptoms when cancer affects either organ. Symptoms of cancer of one of these organs often involve urine, such as discoloration or blood in the urine, pain when urinating, or changes in frequency. One difference between kidney and bladder cancer is often the symptoms that accompany changes in urination. Kidney cancer usually causes pain in the lower back, while bladder cancer can cause abdominal pain.
Because the organs are so close together and involved in the same bodily processes, they tend to have the same treatment options once symptoms are found to be a result of the cancer, including surgery to remove the cancerous growths, medications to help stimulate the system immune to encourage it to fight cancer cells and chemotherapy to destroy cancer cells with the use of chemicals. The success of treatment options for one of the cancers will usually depend on how far the cancer cells have spread throughout the body and whether they tend to come back after treatment.
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