🧬 Ten common cancers

Bladder Cancer

Blood in the urine is the main sign, and it is often painless. That is exactly why it gets ignored.

What it is

NCI describes bladder cancer simply: it happens when cells in the bladder start to grow without control.

The bladder is the organ that holds urine. Because it empties several times a day, changes in urination are usually the first thing anyone notices.

What to watch for

The most common sign, per NCI, is blood in the urine. NCI describes the color as often slightly rusty to bright red, and adds that very small amounts can only be found by having a test done.

The other common signs NCI lists:

Needing to urinate often
Pain or burning when urinating
Feeling the need to go when the bladder is not full
Getting up to urinate often at night

If cancer has grown or spread, NCI adds being unable to urinate, lower back pain on one side, belly pain, bone pain, losing weight and appetite, swelling in the feet, and fatigue.

Here is the honest problem with this list: it is also the list for a urinary tract infection, for an enlarged prostate, and for kidney stones. NCI says so directly. Most people with these symptoms do not have cancer. But painless blood in the urine is not something to wait out, and it is worth saying to a clinician even if it happened once.

What raises the risk

Things that can change or be avoided: tobacco, which NCI calls a major risk factor. Workplace exposure to paints, dyes, metals, or petroleum products. Well water high in arsenic. The Chinese herb Aristolochia fangchi. Long-term use of a urinary catheter.

Things nobody can change: getting older. Being male, since it occurs more often in men. Race, with the disease more common in White than Black Americans. A family history of bladder cancer. Certain gene changes, which NCI names as HRAS, RB1, PTEN, NAT2, and GSTM1.

Past treatment can also raise risk. NCI lists previous pelvic radiation and the chemotherapy drugs cyclophosphamide and ifosfamide.

Is there a test before symptoms start?

Not for people at average risk. NCI is direct: there is no standard screening test for bladder cancer in people at average risk.

NCI does note that certain tests may be used for people who have had bladder cancer before or who are at increased risk, including testing for blood in the urine, urine cytology, urine tumor markers, and cystoscopy. That is follow-up and high-risk monitoring, not population screening.

The US Preventive Services Task Force gives bladder cancer screening a grade I: the evidence is insufficient to assess the balance of benefits and harms in adults without symptoms.

With no screening test, symptoms carry more weight here than they do for cancers that have one. That is the practical takeaway.

The numbers

These describe groups of people, not any one person. Each one names the agency it came from and the years it covers.

New cases each year, United States: About 84,530; American Cancer Society projection, published by NCI SEER · 2026 estimate
Deaths each year: About 17,870; American Cancer Society projection, published by NCI SEER · 2026 estimate
Share of all new cancers: 4.0 percent; NCI SEER
Median age at diagnosis: 73; NCI SEER
Found at the earliest stage, in situ: 50 percent; NCI SEER
Five-year relative survival, in situ: 98.0 percent; NCI SEER · diagnoses 2016-2022
Five-year relative survival, spread to distant parts of the body: 9.6 percent; NCI SEER · diagnoses 2016-2022

What people get wrong

Myth: Blood in the urine only counts if it hurts, or if it keeps happening.
What the evidence says: NCI lists blood in the urine as the most common symptom of bladder cancer, and notes that very small amounts can only be found by a test. NCI also notes that many bladder cancer symptoms are seen with other, less serious conditions. Blood that appears once and then stops is still worth reporting.
Read the source
Myth: Bladder cancer is not related to smoking.
What the evidence says: NCI names using tobacco, especially smoking cigarettes, as a major risk factor for bladder cancer. It appears on CDC's list of cancers caused by smoking too.
Read the source
Myth: There must be a routine test for it by now.
What the evidence says: NCI states there is no standard screening test for bladder cancer in people at average risk. The US Preventive Services Task Force gives it a grade I, meaning the evidence is insufficient to weigh benefits and harms in adults without symptoms.
Read the source

Words on this page

Hematuria: Blood in the urine. It can be bright red, rusty, or too small to see without a test.
Cystoscopy: A test where a doctor looks inside the bladder using a thin tube with a camera.
In situ: Very early cancer that is still only in the layer of cells where it started. Half of bladder cancers are found at this stage.

If you want more detail

These pages are longer and go further into the same topic.