What is the most common treatment for bladder cancer?

If you are diagnosed with bladder cancer, there are several effective treatment options including chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and surgery. Your doctor will recommend the best treatment for you depending on your age, the stage of the cancer, the severity of the symptoms, and your overall health.

At St Pete Urology, we use a shared decision-making approach in dealing with bladder cancer. Shared decision-making means that you and your urologist work together to arrive at a personalized treatment. We are very confident in the outcomes that we achieve through this approach.

So what is the most common treatment for bladder cancer?

Surgery is the most common treatment for bladder cancer. In fact, most people with the cancer need to undergo some form of surgery.  And it is only because surgery may not remove all the tumor cells that the other treatments—chemotherapy, radiation, immunotherapy, targeted therapy—may be necessary along with or instead of surgery.

For early stage bladder cancer, the most common surgical procedure is transurethral resection of bladder tumor (TURBT), also called transurethral resection (TUR). During the procedure, the surgeon inserts a cystoscope through the urethra into your bladder and then uses a tool with a tiny wire loop, a laser, or high-energy electricity (fulguration) to remove the tumor.

If the bladder cancer is detected late, your surgeon may opt for cystectomy—a type of surgery that involves the removal of part of the bladder (partial cystectomy) or the whole bladder (radical cystectomy). Partial cystectomy is the ideal option for cancer that is still small and has spread only slightly to the muscle layer of the bladder.

But for cancer that is large or has spread deeper into the bladder muscle or to more than one part of the bladder, radical cystectomy is the go-to option. It is the removal of the whole bladder together with nearby tissues, organs and lymph nodes. In men, this may include the removal of the prostate gland, seminal vesicles, vas deferens, and part of the urethra. And in women, it can mean the removal of the uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes, and part of the vagina.

Treatments used together with or instead of surgery

  1. Using medicines

Certain medications are effective in destroying cancer cells. Medications used to treat bladder cancer are usually in the form of chemotherapy, immunotherapy or targeted therapy.

  1. Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy is the use of drugs to destroy cancer cells. The drugs are administered in two ways: local (Intravesical) and whole-body (systemic). 

For Intravesical chemotherapy, a prescribed drug is delivered to the bladder through a catheter inserted via the urethra.  The drug destroys superficial tumor cells that come into contact with it, but may not be effective for deeper tumor cells or cancer cells that have spread to other organs. The most frequently used local therapy drugs are mitomycin-C, gemcitabine (Gemzar), docetaxel (Taxotere), and valrubicin (Valstar). 

Systemic chemotherapy means that a drug or combination of drugs is taken orally or injected into the veins. The drug travels through the bloodstream to various parts of the body and shrinks, slows down or kills cancer cells that may have spread beyond the bladder. 

Whole-body chemotherapy is done in cycles to give the body time to recover between treatments. Every cycle lasts a few weeks, while a complete treatment may take several months. Plus, systemic chemotherapy is often done before surgery to help shrink tumors, make them easier to remove, make surgery safer, and minimize the likelihood of a recurrence. 

The drug cisplatin is the most commonly used systemic chemotherapy drug to treat bladder cancer, particularly for the most frequent type of the cancer, known as urothelial carcinoma. The drug damages the DNA of tumor cells so they can’t reproduce. Cisplatin is typically used in combination with other drugs. The most common combinations are:

  1. Methotrexate, vinblastine, doxorubicin (Adriamycin), and cisplatin (MVAC)
  2. Gemcitabine and cisplatin (GC)

iii. Cisplatin, methotrexate, and vinblastine (CMV)

  1. Paclitaxel, gemcitabine, and cisplatin (PGC)
  2. Dose-dense (DD)-MVAC, which has mostly replaced MVAC. It has the same regimen as MVAC, has a growth factor support, and administered with short time between treatments.
  3. Immunotherapy

The treatment exploits the body’s own immune system to attack cancer cells. The attack on cancer cells is triggered by materials made either by the body or in the laboratory. There are two types of immunotherapy: local and systemic.

In local immunotherapy, the doctor injects an immune-boosting germ, usually interferon or BCG (Bacillus Calmette-Guerin) into the bladder via a catheter. The material draws the body’s immune cells to the bladder and activates the cells to fight cancer cells.

Systemic immunotherapy is primarily focused on immune checkpoint inhibitors. The drugs used, such as Atezolizumab (Tecentriq), Avelumab (Bavencio), Nivolumab (Opdivo) or Pembrolizumab (Keytruda), have the ability to block the protein PD-1 found on the surface of T cells.  Since protein PD-1 usually stops the immune system from destroying cancer cells, blocking it empowers the immune system to better eliminate cancer cells.

  1. Targeted therapy

The treatment involves using drugs that can target and destroy specific proteins, genes or tissues that enable the growth and survival of cancer cells. Drugs used, such as Erdafitinib (Balversa), Enfortumab vedotin—ejfv (Padcev) and Sacituzumab govitecan (Trodelvy), have the ability to block the growth and spread of cancer cells.

Before targeted treatment, the doctor runs genomic tests to identify the genes, proteins, and other factors contributing to the tumor. This helps to find the most specific molecular targets. 

  1. Radiation therapy

It is the use of high-energy x-rays or other particles to destroy cancer cells. The treatment is administered in the form of external-beam radiation, which is radiation given from a machine located outside the body. The alternative, called brachytherapy or internal radiation therapy, which uses implants, is not ideal for bladder cancer. 

A radiation therapy regimen, or schedule, consists of a specific number of treatments delivered over a set period of time.  

For bladder cancer, radiotherapy is used:

  1. When you have early-stage bladder cancer
  2. When you have early-stage cancer but can’t have surgery
  3. As a follow-up to TURBT or partial bladder removal surgery
  4. To prevent or treat symptoms of advanced bladder cancer

Safe, unparalleled bladder cancer treatment

Are you experiencing bladder cancer symptoms? Or are you worried that your urinary symptoms could be due to bladder cancer?

At St Pete Urology, we have a team of urologists that are skilled, knowledgeable and experienced in bladder cancer diagnosis and treatment. So you can trust us to detect the cancer in its early stages and to administer the most appropriate treatment. 

Through our collaborative, compassionate, multidisciplinary approach, we ensure that our patients get the best possible bladder cancer care. Visit us today for an accurate, timely diagnosis.

For more information on bladder cancer risks, prevention, signs and symptoms, diagnosis and treatment, visit the site “St Pete Urology.”

How Is Bladder Cancer First Diagnosed?

Early diagnosis of bladder cancer is crucial for successful treatment. Unfortunately, there is no specific test available for screening asymptomatic people for the disease. So diagnosis of the cancer primarily relies on the presence of symptoms.  

Working from symptoms

In fact, most cases of bladder cancer are diagnosed when patients report having blood in urine to their doctors. It is at this point that a urine test, called urinalysis, is often ordered to confirm the presence of blood in urine.  

Of course, having blood in urine does not necessarily imply that there is bladder cancer since bleeding can also be due to urinary tract infections, kidney stones, bladder stones, kidney disease, or a non-cancerous tumor. Hence, when blood is present, the urologist will go the extra mile to find out the underlying course.

Apart from blood in urine, your doctor may also suspect bladder cancer if you have urinary symptoms, such as frequent urination, burning sensation during urination, weak urine stream, nocturia, or inability to urinate.

Although occurrence of symptoms is usually the first basis for suspecting bladder cancer, it has various limitations. For instance, there are no symptoms that are specific to the cancer. This may lead to a misdiagnosis of the cancer as another disease with similar symptoms.

Also, many cases of bladder cancer show no symptoms in the early stages. So by the time you’re going to a doctor because of some symptoms, it may already be too late and the cancer could have spread to various organs and become difficult to treat.

Urinary tests

Regular urinary tests can help to detect early-stage bladder cancer. For when there is persistent blood in your urine, your urologist will be prompted to order for further tests.  Usually, when there is any amount of blood in your urine, your doctor will recommend a urine cytology test.

Urine cytology testing uses a random urine sample to check if the urine contains tumor cells. The sample is examined under a microscope to look for the cancer cells. Alternatively, the urine sample can be subjected to molecular analysis, which will detect the presence of various proteins or genes associated with cancer cells. 

Cystoscopy

This is a key bladder cancer diagnostic procedure that allows a urologist to see inside the body with the help of a thin, flexible, lighted tube called a cystoscope.  The cystoscope is inserted into the bladder through the urethra and has a camera to help the doctor clearly view the bladder. 

Apart from assessing the bladder, a cystoscope can be used to take a small tissue sample (biopsy) or to treat early-stage tumors without surgery.  Cystoscopy is a simple outpatient procedure performed in the doctor’s office, and is quite effective in detecting growths in the bladder and determining if there is need for biopsy or surgery.

Biopsy

If your doctor finds abnormal growth in your bladder during cystoscopy, a biopsy is the next and most definitive step. Also called transurethral resection of bladder tumor (TURBT), a biopsy involves the removal of a small amount of tissue from the bladder for examination under the microscope.

Usually the tumor, together with a sample of bladder muscle near the tumor, is removed. But additional biopsies of other parts of the bladder may also be necessary depending on the cystoscopy results. The tissue samples obtained during TURBT are analyzed by a pathologist to confirm bladder cancer, identify the type of tumor, and to find out how deeply it has spread into the layers of the bladder.

What are the warning signs of bladder cancer?

Because the bladder holds urine produced by the kidneys, the warning signs of bladder cancer usually relate to urination. Urine is made in the kidneys and moves down the ureters to the bladder, which then stores the urine to allow for an infrequent, controlled urination.

Blood in urine

The earliest warning sign of bladder cancer is blood in urine, also called hematuria. The blood may be present in the urine regularly or appear sporadically over the course of days or weeks. Plus, it may change the color of urine to orange, pink or dark red—though sometimes there may be no apparent urine color change.

Blood in urine is a critical sign of the cancer because early-stage bladder cancer does not often cause pain or other symptoms except bleeding. In fact, bladder cancer is usually diagnosed after patients tell their doctor about having urine in their blood.

Gross hematuria is when blood is present in urine in such a large quantity that the patient can see it. But sometimes, there may be microscopic hematuria, whereby the blood is present is such a small amount that it can’t be seen by the naked eye, though can be detected by a urine test. 

Nevertheless, blood in urine is not always an indicator of bladder tumor. It could be due to other less serious conditions, such as urinary tract infections, bladder stones, kidney stones, kidney disease, or non-cancerous tumors. Plus, in women, blood from menstruation may appear in urine and could cause a false-positive test result.

Urinary symptoms

While changes in urination are often a sign of less serious conditions, such as urinary tract infections, overactive bladder, benign tumor, bladder stones, or in men, an enlarged prostate, they may also be an early warning sign of bladder cancer.

Urinary symptoms that may indicate bladder cancer include:

  1. Pain or burning sensation during urination
  2. Frequent urination
  3. Nocturia—having to urinate many times throughout the night
  4. Feeling the urge to urinate even when the bladder is not full
  5. Having the urge to urinate, but being unable to pass urine
  6. Weak urine stream
  7. Lower back pain, often on one side of the body

When experiencing these changes, it is advisable to speak with your doctor as soon as possible. Your doctor will do a medical exam and order specific tests to help identify the cause of the symptoms. The doctor will also be able to rule out the cancer or run further tests to diagnose the cancer so that you are put on early treatment.

Advanced bladder cancer warning signs

Not everyone with early-stage bladder cancer will have symptoms. In some people, the first warning signs appear when the cancer has already grown too big or has spread beyond the bladder. 

Warning signs of advanced bladder cancer include:

  1. Pelvic pain
  2. Lower back pain, usually on one side
  3. Fatigue or general body weakness
  4. Inability to urinate
  5. Swelling of the feet
  6. Bone pain
  7. Unexplained weight loss
  8. Loss of appetite

For bladder cancer that has spread to other parts of the body, the symptoms typically depend on the affected organ. For instance, if the cancer has spread to the lungs, it may produce shortness of breath or persistent coughing.

Equally, if the cancer has spread to the liver, it may cause jaundice (yellowing of the skin or eyes) and abdominal pain. And if the cancer has spread to bones, it may lead to bone pain or a broken bone (fracture).

Timely diagnosis and treatment

If you are having blood in urine, urinary symptoms or other disturbing changes, speak with your doctor about them. The doctor will seek to establish how long, how severe, and how often you have been experiencing the symptoms. 

Together with performing a physical examination and ordering lab tests, the doctor will try to figure out the problem. If bladder cancer is suspected, your doctor will request for further tests to confirm the diagnosis.

 For more information on bladder cancer, its signs and symptoms, risks and prevention, and diagnosis and treatment, visit the site “St Pete Urology.”

How Does Bladder Bowel Control Work

Tonight we’re going to talk about bowel and bladder control primarily, so Dr. Graves and I both actually trained together at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. And we’ve been each practicing for close to ten years and we’ve had five years of urology training in residency and med school before that. And the topic tonight is something that we do have a lot of focus in and enjoy taking care of and have specialty in.

So bladder control is something we’ll discuss about the pathophysiology and how that works. So your kidneys filter your blood and make urine and then it goes into the bladder where it’s stored and then you pee that out. And you’re supposed to be able to control that and the bladder’s in muscle. And when the bladder gets full basically it’ll send a signal and you’ll get relaxation of the external sphincter, which is a sphincter control to control the urine. And then allow the sphincter to open and then the bladder squeezes down and drains the bladder. But this is a complex system and it does require basically the brain and its ability to inhibit the need to urinate and the ability to control relaxation. The sphincter and the spinal cord so it’s a pretty exquisite and very detailed system, but it’s something that different areas of that process can have an issue that could be fixed or could be the cause of the incumbents. And then the bowel control is very similar instead of a bladder you have intestines and a colon and a rectum where a stool is stored. And there is a sphincter as well that controls your ability to hold the stool in place and again that involves the brain the spinal cord and the the muscle of the rectum and the colon involved for bowel control you

May is Bladder Cancer Awareness Month

May is the World Bladder Cancer Awareness Month—a time to reflect on the burden of the cancer across the globe and to improve on the fight against the disease.

Being the tenth most common cancer worldwide with over 550,000 cases diagnosed annually and more than 1.7 million people living with the condition, bladder cancer is increasingly posing a heavy morbidity and mortality burden. 

Currently, it is the sixth most common cancer in men and the seventeenth most common cancer in women—one in 100 men and one in 400 women are diagnosed with the cancer globally. It is also the thirteenth most common cause of death from cancer worldwide. 

So there is every reason to up the battle against the disease. And the Bladder Cancer Awareness Month is a critical time to do that.

Why raise awareness?

Raising awareness is a major weapon in fighting bladder cancer. You may not know it, but it is true that most people have never heard of bladder cancer. In fact, most people diagnosed with the cancer had never heard of it until it stormed into their lives.

Likewise, bladder cancer is one of the most forgotten and least talked about conditions globally. Thanks to symptoms such as blood in urine and its occurrence in an intimate area of the body, many people tend to feel embarrassed speaking about it or seeking professional help.

With less talk about it follows less awareness. And with inadequate information follows limited action to prevent the cancer or to seek early diagnosis. So as a consequence, most cases of bladder cancer are detected too late, which diminishes the chances of successful treatment.

The lack of awareness also causes people to think it is a very rare cancer, which is quite far from the truth. In the United States, bladder cancer is the sixth most common cancer, with at least 81,000 new cases reported every year.   

Equally, many people are unaware of the main symptoms of the cancer, and how serious the disease can be. Neither are they aware that it can affect anyone, male or female, young or old. 

Moreover, since early diagnosis is critical in beating the cancer, it is essential the more people know about the cancer, its signs and symptoms, and why the need to seek medical attention as soon as they have the symptoms.

Help spread the message

The World Bladder Cancer Awareness Month provides an opportunity to spark conversations that can drive awareness and help overcome the feelings of embarrassment about the symptoms. Plus, it provides the opportunity to raise our voices for those affected by the condition.

At St Pete Urology, we take the Bladder Cancer Awareness Month seriously.  It is a period when the world’s attention is on the cancer and we consider it the best time to intensify our efforts on bladder cancer awareness, early detection, and successful treatment.   

We also take it a as a crucial time when everyone—you included—can play a part in combating the cancer. This month, we call on you to join us in raising awareness.

So what practical things can you do to help raise awareness about bladder cancer?

  1. Check if your hospital has information posters and leaflets for bladder cancer patients. And if they are available, find out if they are giving them to the patients. If not, please do let them know.
  2. Speak with your physician and get them to display bladder cancer awareness posters or distribute awareness leaflets.  Plus, you can request for bladder cancer awareness posters to display on various spaces, in your home or office.
  3. Speak openly about bladder cancer with your friends and relatives. Encourage them to also talk to others about the disease. Remember, if you tell two people, and then those two people tell another two, a chain of information is created that can have a huge impact.
  4. Make some posts about bladder cancer on social media. Of course, you can easily do that by sharing, liking, or commenting on our posts. You may never know just how many people you might help learn more about the cancer.
  5. Thank medical professionals involved in bladder cancer care. It may appear like a small effort, but in the larger scheme of things, it goes a long way in encouraging them to do their best for cancer patients.
  6. Take part in a fundraising to help the fight against bladder cancer. 
  7. Wear orange and tell people the reason why you are doing so. Dressing up in orange for a day or more can be a striking way of drawing people’s attention towards the disease.

At St Pete Urology, we believe that making more people aware of bladder cancer is a potent weapon in the fight against the disease. That is why every year in May we line up various activities to help us take advantage of the Bladder Cancer Awareness Month in getting the message out there. 

We also believe that increased awareness can help to drive more people to seek prompt medical attention. For in combating the cancer, nothing is more critical than early detection, which often leads to successful treatment. 

So help us spread this message of awareness and let others know more about the cancer. For more information on bladder cancer, signs and symptoms, risks and prevention, diagnosis and treatment, visit the site “St Pete Urology.”

Understanding Bladder and Bowel Control

Tonight we’re going to talk about bowel and bladder control primarily, so Dr. Graves and I both actually trained together at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. And we’ve been each practicing for close to ten years and we’ve had five years of urology training in residency and med school before that. And the topic tonight is something that we do have a lot of focus in and enjoy taking care of and have specialty in. 

So really we’re going to be dealing with two main things: that’s problems with number one and number two, so issues with urinary control and bowel control today. And actually I still remember one of the main reasons I went into urology was because I wanted to help people with quality of life issues. And often having issues controlling either urination or your bowels can be embarrassing and difficult to talk about. And a lot of patients I’ll even deal with for other reasons and they just don’t want to talk about it because they’re just embarrassed. But it’s very common and as patients even young patients can have issues but as we get older they can become more prevalent, but we want to create awareness about it and let you know that you can talk to your physicians, doctors and urologists about it and there are solutions and it’s not something you have to live with. 

So just a quick outline of what we want to talk about today is understanding the bladder and bowel control better today, the care pathway for these different treatment options. And then we can also talk about how medtronic has different treatment options such as inner stem, another type of treatment called neuro, and we’ll discuss those in detail and then we’ll open it up for some questions. So if you’re having bowel and bladder issues you’re not alone, it’s very common and one in six adults can have an overactive bladder. And we’ll discuss what that means so OAB is often referred to as overactive bladder. 

So you have about 37 million Americans who have an overactive bladder and that’s where you have urinary frequency, urgency, difficulty with controlling urination when you want to, and that can even have incontinence where you actually can have urinary incontinence and lose control of your urine. And then one in 12 adults can have fecal incontinence and that’s loss of control of having a bowel movement so that can be very distressing for patients. And this is quite common just to compare there’s 12 million patients in the U.S with vision problems and 17 million patients with asthma so it’s even more prevalent than that.

Does pelvic organ prolapse go away?

Why is pelvic organ prolapse so complicated and distressing?

With pelvic organ prolapse, one of the organs in the pelvic region—such as the uterus, rectum or bladder—drops downwards and bulges into the vagina.

What follows is a number of bothersome symptoms, such as:

  1. A persistent feeling that something foreign is inside you. The feeling worsens walking standing or during bowel movements. 
  2. A persistent pressure or pain in the pelvis and lower back.
  3. Troublesome urinary problems such as the need to constantly pass urine or the leaking of urine.
  4. Painful sex or urination

In some cases, the uterus and vagina may bulge through the vaginal opening. For many, this can be embarrassing and make sex uncomfortable, difficult and in some instances impossible. 

Does pelvic organ prolapse go away?

Unfortunately, pelvic organ prolapse will not go away without surgery. Untreated pelvic organ prolapse will remain the same and in many cases simply deteriorate over time. 

There is one exception.

If you have a mild prolapse after childbirth, it will in many cases resolve itself one year or so after delivery. In other words, the prolapse will follow the normal recovery trend after childbirth.

Otherwise, apart from pelvic organ prolapse after childbirth, prolapses tend to stabilize if managed with conservative treatments or get worse.

Why is surgery often necessary if you have pelvic organ prolapse?

An organ prolapse is not a life-threatening condition so you may choose to leave it untreated.

Of course, there are measures that can improve the condition and relieve the symptoms. For instance, pelvic floor exercises (kegel exercises) can strengthen your pelvic floor, improve the support for the prolapsed organ, and relieve the symptoms—though it won’t resolve the prolapse completely or reverse it..

In some instances, you may use vaginal pessaries. These are medical devices inserted in the vagina to provide support. In general, they will hold up the vaginal or uterus walls and push back the prolapse. 

However the most effective way to comprehensively treat a pelvic organ prolapse is surgery that is tailored to repair the prolapse. Ideally your doctor will restore the organ to its place, tighten your pelvic floor muscles, and restore necessary support in your pelvic region so the prolapse is successfully eliminated.

The type of surgery required will depend largely on the organ involved and the specific degree of prolapse. Hence, your doctor will customize the procedure to meet your specific condition and needs.

At St Pete Urology, we help women recover from mild, moderate or severe pelvic organ prolapse. Speaking with one of our experienced urologists will enable you to make an informed decision on how to manage a prolapse.

What Are The 5 Warning Signs of Prostate Cancer?

You are experiencing some terrifying symptoms.

Pain as you pee. 

Some blood in your urine.

Or frequent urination.

Now, you fear the worst.

You’ve heard of prostate cancer, and you’re scared you might have it.

Perhaps, that’s why you’re reading this post—to confirm your worries.

At St Pete Urology, we want our clients to be involved in decisions about their health. And to make the most informed health choices. 

So we strive to provide our clients with the most accurate and trustworthy information.  And direct them to where they’ll get helped.

We hope to help you overcome your worries. And make the right decisions.

Prostate cancer—a slow-growing cancer

Though prostate cancer is one of the most common types of cancer, it generally grows slowly and tends to be confined to the prostate. And as long as it remains in the prostate, it does not usually cause serious harm. In fact, slow-growing types of prostate cancers may need minimal or no treatment. 

Still, there are few types of prostate cancer that are aggressive, spread quickly, and need timely treatment. Such types of the cancer need to be detected early, particularly when still confined to the prostate, so that they can be treated successfully.

It is due to these types of the cancer that you should know the early warning signs of the cancer and seek prompt treatment.

Yet, with prostate cancer, there are a number of challenges when it comes to warning signs.

  1. Different men have different symptoms.
  2. Some men do not show symptoms at all.
  3. The cancer grows slowly, so it takes time for symptoms to occur.
  4. Only aggressive, rapidly spreading types of the cancer may need treatment.
  5. The cancer doesn’t show any signs or symptoms when in the early stages. So it needs to grow for a while before you can notice any signs.
  6. Signs and symptoms that appear as the cancer advances aren’t specific, and could be due to other non-cancerous conditions.

Nevertheless, any signs are still valuable in early detection of the disease as long as you consult your doctor as soon as you have worrying or persistent symptoms.

 The five warning signs of prostate cancer are:

  1. Pain or a burning sensation when urinating. Pain may also occur when ejaculating
  2. Frequent urination especially at night
  3. Blood in urine or semen
  4. Sudden erectile dysfunction
  5. Difficulty starting or stopping urination

Most of these warning signs are related to urination. That is because the prostate is situated beneath the bladder. So an increased mass or size of the prostate immediately affects the bladder and hinders urination.

When prostate cancer has spread beyond the prostate, other warning signs may appear. 

They include:

  1. Lower body swelling
  2. Bone pain
  3. Abnormal urinary or bowel habits
  4. Sudden, inexplicable weight loss
  5. Pain in the back, pelvis, or hips that doesn’t go away
  6. Difficulty emptying the bladder completely

When to see a doctor

Since the warning signs of prostate cancer aren’t specific, you should make an appointment with your doctor if you have any symptoms that worry you or if any signs are persistent. Your doctor will take your history, conduct exams, and order for tests that will help to rule out other conditions. 

Besides, even if you are diagnosed with prostate cancer, it is much easier to treat when detected early.

At St Pete Urology, we offer a full-range of diagnostic testing for prostate cancer. Our multidisciplinary team of urologic oncologic experts is devoted to evaluating, detecting and treating prostate cancer. Book your consultation now if you have any of the above warning signs. For more information on the diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer, visit the site “St Pete Urology.”

What color is healthy for urine?

Urine is your body’s liquid waste. A larger part of it is water, but it also contains salts, urea, uric acid, and other chemicals. The contents of urine indicate how healthy your body is and an analysis of your urine sample can help your doctor to figure out if you’re healthy or not.

What is the color of healthy urine?

Normal urine is pale yellow to deep amber. The color is due to the pigment urochrome that is a byproduct of the breakdown of hemoglobin.  So if your urine is any color ranging from yellow to gold, then it is healthy.  Also, if your urine color is a pale shade of yellow or clear, then it is a good sign for your health.

Of course, when your urine is bright yellow or a neon liquid, you may think it isn’t normal. But that is still the color of harmless urine and it may only show you’re taking a lot of vitamins or supplements—you may cut down on them if necessary.

Dark yellow urine is normal, but may indicate you need to drink more water. Actually, a darker shade of yellow implies low urine volume, which tends to come from dehydration, strenuous exercise, working for several hours in a hot place, or not drinking enough fluids.

Besides, a dark yellow color may mean that your urine is more concentrated and needs some diluting through increased fluid intake. But a continuous low volume of urine that has a darker shade of yellow, amber or is honey-colored is a major risk of kidney stones and you’ll need to correct it quickly by drinking more water to dilute and make it clearer.

Clear or somewhat transparent urine is healthy, too. It often means that you’re drinking a lot of water. Increased water intake dilutes the yellow pigment found in urine, so that the more you drink the clearer your urine becomes.

A little reduction of your fluid intake will restore the yellow color of your urine, especially if it is persistently clear or transparent. Reducing your fluid intake also helps to minimize the number of trips you make to the bathroom.

What are the colors of unhealthy urine?

  1. Brown urine

Brown urine color does not always mean you’re unhealthy. The color may occur when you consume large quantities of fava beans, aloe or rhubarb. It may also be due to severe dehydration, which you can correct by drinking plenty of water. Plus, it can be due to medications like metronidazole (Flagyl), chloroquine, primaquine, nitrofurantoin, methocarbamol, and laxatives such as senna or cascara.

But brown urine may equally imply you have medical conditions such as a kidney disorder or a liver condition. Some urinary tract infections may also turn urine brown. Therefore, if you have brown urine that doesn’t go away with increased fluid intake, visit your doctor to find out the cause.

  1. Red, pink or bloody urine

Your urine may be red or pink if you’ve recently eaten beets, rhubarb or blueberries; or if you have engaged in a strenuous exercise.  Medications such as rifampin, phenazopyridine, and laxatives like senna can also cause a red color.

But red color may also mean blood in urine (hematuria), which is a common indicator of urinary tract infections, enlarged prostate, cancerous or non-cancerous tumor, kidney cyst, bladder or kidney stones. Likewise, a deep red to brown color may indicate porphyria—a rare, inherited disorder of the red blood cells. 

Visit your doctor if you experience blood in your urine, particularly if you have no recent history of medication or foods that can turn your urine red.

  1. Orange urine

Orange color of urine may mean you’re eating large quantities of carrots, carrot juice or food with an orange dye. It may also imply you took medications such as phenazopyridine, sulfasalazine, isoniazid, riboflavin, a chemotherapy drug, or a laxative.

But your urine may also be orange because you are dehydrated and need water, or due to a liver or bile duct condition. If the orange color in your urine lasts a few days, you need to see your urologist.

  1. Blue or green urine

It is quite rare to have urine that is blue or green in color. But you can have blue urine due to a food dye or medications such as the pain reliever indomethacin, the anti-acid cimetidine, the anesthetic propofol, or the antidepressant amitriptyline.

Children with a rare genetic condition called familial benign hypercalcemia (blue diaper syndrome) have blue urine. Your urine may be green due to asparagus or because of infection by the bacteria Pseudomonas. Get in touch with your doctor if a blue or green urine color occurs for more than a day.

  1. Purple urine

It is very unusual to have purple urine. But one of the conditions known to cause purple urine color is the purple bag urine syndrome, which occurs due to the use of a urinary catheter by a patient who also has a co-existing urinary tract infection.

  1. Cloudy or foamy urine

You can have foam in your urine if you love steak and eat a lot of red meat or are on a ketogenic diet (high fat and low carbohydrate diet). But cloudy urine may also indicate dehydration or excess mineral intake.  Disorders like urinary tract infection, Chron’s disease, kidney disease, or diverticulitis also cause cloudy urine.

When should you see your doctor?

Changes in the color of your urine may be temporary and harmless, particularly due to food, vitamins or medication. But when the changes persist, you should be concerned.

You should see your doctor anytime you have blood in your urine as this usually indicates urinary tract infections, kidney stones or other condition. Seeing your doctor is even more urgent if the blood is accompanied by pain—although a painless bleeding may be due to a more serious condition such as cancer.

You should see a doctor if your urine is green, brown or orange and comes with a back pain, side pain, fever, burning sensation with urination, vomiting, discharge or thirst.

Remember, green urine may be due to bacterial infection, orange urine may indicate liver problem, and brown urine may signal kidney or liver disorder. Visiting your doctor will help you know what is causing the change. For more information on various urologic disorders, visit the site “St Pete Urology.”