Treatment for muscle-invasive bladder cancer

The main treatment options for muscle-invasive bladder cancer are:

• Chemotherapy
• Surgery to remove your bladder, or part of it
• Radiotherapy

Often people have chemotherapy to shrink the cancer, followed by surgery or radiotherapy. You may be offered a choice between surgery and radiotherapy. You may also have chemotherapy after surgery, to reduce the risk of the cancer coming back.

If surgery isn’t an option for you, the main treatment is radiotherapy, usually given along with chemotherapy (chemoradiation).

You may have chemotherapy drugs:

Often a few chemotherapy drugs are used together for muscle-invasive bladder cancer. Your doctor or nurse will discuss your treatment with you. 

You may have surgery to remove all or part of your bladder (radical or partial cystectomy) if you have muscle-invasive bladder cancer. 

Radiotherapy is a treatment that uses high-energy X-rays to kill cancer cells. Radiotherapy for muscle-invasive bladder cancer may be given:

• Instead of surgery.
• Before surgery to shrink a tumour.
• After surgery to destroy any remaining tumour.
• With chemotherapy to make the treatment work better (chemoradiation).
• To relieve symptoms if the cancer is advanced or has come back. For example, pain, discomfort, bleeding or blockage.
• To treat a single spread of cancer, such as in your brain or bone.