bladder flush???

[tlmhospice]

My husband's grandmother, which is 90 y/o, has been relatively healthy living a very independant life on her own in Pittsburg. Suddenly, yesterday we get a call that she is having a bx of a mass in her bladder.

From what we got from the family, which is always limited at best, it was indeed maligment, only on the surface of her bladder, mostly removed, and are now going to try a "bladder flush". Does anybody know what this is referring to? And why are they blaming this ONLY on smoking? Is there some new link that I am not aware of? Cancer does run rampid in family with both of her daughters with Breast Ca, my mother in law's so aggressive it only took 8 months before she passed with aggressive treatment. I am on the hospice end of it and know about Ca itself, but not treatment as we only deal with the end stages of it focusing on palliative care, not treatment. Any answers would be appreciated as we feel left in the dark with so little info to go on.

tlm:confused:

[aimeee, BSN, RN]

Perhaps this will shed some light on the association between smoking and bladder cancer for you:

"Women who smoked 40 or more cigarettes a day for 40 years or more, for example, faced more than twice the risk of contracting bladder cancer as men with the same smoking habit. These women incurred more than 11 times the risk of bladder cancer than a non-smoker, while men ran approximately five times the risk of a non-smoker."

bladder cancer article

[caroladybelle, BSN, RN]

Bladder cancer has always been heavily linked with tobacco use, as far as I know. Other risk factors include working in manufacturing, chemical production/exposure, line jobs utilizing certain chemicals, and jobs with limited bathroom breaks. I believe that the idea is that the chemicals absorbed through inhalation/skin, get eliminated in the urine and stay in the bladder for too long, giving excessive exposure to the tissue.

As far as a "complete flush", there is either instilling/irrigating the bladder with anticancer drugs.....or them using a CBI (complete bladder irrigation w/a 3 way foley) to flush out clots or to irrigate after IV administration of bladder damaging chemo. There is not enough information in your post to know which.

So sorry to hear about your loved one.