Bladder Preservation

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The Tuality/OHSU Cancer Center offers treatment for muscle-invasive bladder cancer that preserves the function of your bladder.

What is bladder preservation therapy

Bladder preservation therapy is a treatment where the bladder tumor is removed, followed by radiation therapy and chemotherapy. Bladder preservation helps patients preserve bladder function to improve their quality of life.  The treatment has been used over the past 40 years, with over 1,500 patients treated in multiple clinical trials in the U.S. and Europe.

Treatment

The first step is for a surgeon to remove the cancerous tumor inside the bladder.

A four-week regimen of daily radiation therapy and chemotherapy follows.

Then there is a four-week break from treatment, in which a urologist looks inside the bladder to make sure the treatment is going as planned.

The patient then receives another two and a half weeks of daily radiation therapy with chemotherapy.

After the final round of therapy, patients have urological evaluations every three to six months initially, then less frequently, to look for recurrent tumors. Afterwards, a patient’s oncologist and urologist will continue monitoring on an annual basis to check for recurrent tumors.

Our expertise

Dr. Timur Mitin, medical director at the Tuality/OHSU Cancer Center, is a specialist in bladder preservation therapy.  He received his training in the Harvard Radiation Oncology Program in Boston and was invited to join the faculty at Massachusetts General Hospital – the institution that established and refined the bladder preservation program in North America over the past 40 years.

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