Missed BCG treatments

17 years 1 month ago #3735 by wendy
Replied by wendy on topic Missed BCG treatments
Hi,

I'm not a urologist (or a medical professional) but from years of hanging around bladder cancer survivors and listening to their stories, I would say, no it's not so common for someone to react like this. There must be a reason. Someone mentioned they had bleeding post TUR that had to be cauterised.

Has it been determined what is the cause, has the doctor looked in there? I can only assume that since he had 2 BCG's post TUR, the bleeding is not from the TUR, but from the BCG treatments. I know that sometimes people react very badly to BCG and can't continue, and I've met a few who have had extensive bladder damage which necessitated cystectomy, but they had had more than 2 treatments...so...it's weird, I'm sorry.

About your other worry, the TUR was the act that removed the cancer. BCG is an insurance that there was nothing left and no seeding occurs, as well as a way to prevent any recurrence. So perhaps your son is already cancer free. A lot would depend on the stage and grade of the cancer, how aggressive it was. For example, many doctors recommended a second TUR for a T1, high grade (3) diagnosis, before doing BCG. If there is residual tumor found it would call for aggressive treatment and follow up.

This isn't done for Ta or lower grade tumors.

Wendy

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17 years 1 month ago #3734 by Mom
Missed BCG treatments was created by Mom
This is Mom again. My son has superficial bladder cancer and has begun the BCG treatment. After the 2nd treatment he started having blood in his urine. He could not have the 3rd treatment and after two weeks missed treatments was scheduled for his 3rd treatment Monday. There was still blood in his urine and he missed his 3rd treatment again after missing the treatment 3 weeks in a row. His doctor ordered another urine test to rule out a bladder infection. So far that has been negative.

How common is it to miss consecutive BCG treatments of 6 required treatments of one a week?
Is it unusual to miss the treatments? Or is this common?
When the treatments are missed, does this leave an 'open door' for the cancer to spread to the inner surface/muscle tissue?

Mom

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