Pathology, Pathologists, Pathology Report and Bladder Cancer

 

For a quick glossary of terms concerning bladder cancer and pathology, types, stages, and grades click here.

After your TURBT (Transurethral Resection of Bladder Tumor - the surgery to take out the tumor, read about it more here ), they will take your tumor and send it to pathology, or a lab, in which they will look very closely at the sample of your tumor, under a microscope, looking at the cellular level of the tumor cells and bladder cells surrounding the tumor. The physicians specifically trained to do this are called pathologists. 

Please remember, that not only can you get a second opinion from a urologist or oncologist, you can also get a second opinion on your pathology. EVERYTHING concerning your treatment is about the pathology, so its vital that you understand what it is, and you are sure that the pathology is correct. 

After the tumor or tissue sample has been identified and assessed, they will give your doctor a pathology report, that gives all the information about the tumor. This report will tell you if the tumor is cancer or not. If it is cancer then the report will tell you the type of cancer, the stage of cancer, and the grade. 

Be sure to get a copy of your pathology report. Your physician will sit down with you and discuss the pathology report. You are not going to understand a lot of what is said, so it's important to have that report so you can later look up information on your own.

If the cancer is too large, or has spread too far, they might not be able to get all of it, and have to use chemotherapy and radiation to shrink the tumors. Sometimes they have to do multiple surgeries and biopsies to get all the tumors. 

If the tumor has invaded the muscle wall (stage 2 and above) then you will most likely need to have your bladder removed. If you want some basic understanding and definitions of possible surgeries and treatments with bladder cancer, click here.

The pathologist will determine if there are clean margins in the tissue samples. This means that when a tumor is taken out, at the outer edge of where the tumor was, healthy tissue is removed also. They check to make sure there is a large chunk of healthy tissue taken out that was under the tumor, meaning that "they got it all," and all the cancer cells have been removed. If you have clean margins that will mean that that got out all of the cancer tissue. 

If they didn't get clean margins, they will need to take you back into surgery to remove more of the tumor, and verify once again that they got clean margins.  

If it's a benign tumor, that means that it's not cancerous. It only grows in one place and won't spread or invade other parts of your body. Benign tumors may grow large but do not spread into, or invade, nearby tissues or other parts of the body.

If the tumor is malignant, then it means that it is cancerous. It means that the tumor is an abnormal mass of tissue when cells grow and divide more than they should, or do not die when they should, and if not taken out, it will spread and invade all over your body. Malignant tumors can spread into, or invade, nearby tissues. They can also spread to other parts of the body through the blood and lymph systems. These tumors are also called neoplasms.

If it's cancer, they will tell you the type, the stage, and the grade of the tumor. I will explain what all of this means later in this article. Just stick with me. It will all make sense. 

Most of us need to read, and re-read all of this information. It's a lot to process. Bookmark this page, and you can always come back to it when you need. You have got this. 💗

I would recommend bringing a loved one with you when you get the results of your pathology report. You might see written on a paper in black and white that you have cancer. No more time for denial. It might be right there in front of you. Believe me, it's quite the shock. Personally, when I heard the word cancer come out of my doctors mouth, I was not able to process anything else. It was almost like what you see in the movies. All the voices in the room become white noise, and I wasn't hearing what anyone was saying or processing it.

This is part of the first stage of grief - shock. Click here for an article about going through the 7 stages of grief when you are diagnosed with cancer. It's normal, it's expected, and it's important to give yourself plenty of time, space, and grace as you go through this experience. Lots of intense emotions are going to be flying around as you go through the different stages of grief. There is a lot of loss with bladder cancer.

Be sure the loved one knows what you need from them before you get to the doctors office. Tell them if you get bad news, it's going to be their job to ask questions (write them down before hand), and write the answers down.