July is Bladder Cancer Awareness Month – Do You Know the Bladder Cancer Risk Factors?

Men Are More Likely to Get Bladder Cancer Than Women... Are You at Risk?
Men Are More Likely to Get Bladder Cancer Than Women… Are You at Risk?

This July, you may see people sporting a yellow ribbon for Bladder Cancer Awareness Month. What do you know about the risks for this type of cancer that accounts for five percent of all new diagnoses in the United States each year?

Demographic Factors

  • Bladder cancer is the fourth most common type of cancer in men. According to projections by the American Cancer Society, in 2016 new diagnoses of bladder cancer in men will outnumber women three to one.
  • Approximately 90 percent of bladder cancer occurs in people over the age of 55.
  • Caucasians are twice as likely as African-Americans and Hispanics to develop bladder cancer. Occurrences are also lower in Asian-Americans and American Indians.

Lifestyle Factors

  • Smoking is the most serious risk factor, tripling your chances of developing bladder cancer. In addition, roughly half of all bladder cancer cases with both men and women are caused by smoking.
  • The diabetes medicine Actos, along with certain dietary supplements, has been linked to an increased risk of bladder cancer.

Medical Factors

  • Previous chemotherapy or radiation treatment can increase your risk of developing bladder cancer.
  • While direct cause-and-effect of bladder cancer has not yet been established, a link has been found with chronic urinary tract infections or bladder and kidney stones.

Issels® Offers Non-Toxic Immunotherapy for Bladder Cancer

Patients at Issels® have been successfully treated with immunotherapy for bladder cancer as well as other common forms such as lung cancer, breast cancer and melanoma. Contact us to learn more about our cancer vaccines and other personalized, integrative treatment programs.

July is Bladder Cancer Awareness Month, Will You Be Wearing the Yellow Ribbon?

New Immunotherapy Drug Can Help Fight Bladder Cancer
New Immunotherapy Drug Can Help Fight Bladder Cancer

If you or someone you love has received a diagnosis of bladder cancer or is in stage four and have exhausted treatment options, NBC news reports that there may be new hope for immunotherapy treatment for bladder cancer. This information is timely as July is Bladder Cancer Awareness Month.

Immunotherapy treatments

Immunotherapy for bladder cancer works by treating a person’s immune system so it has the ability to fight cancer.

According to the NBC news article, “more successful approaches, involve training immune cells to recognize a patient’s specific tumors, or finding and amplifying a patient’s own tumor-specific immune cells.” Immunotherapy now appears to be the best course of cancer treatment for many patients.

New drug, new hope

Hope now lies in a drug newly-approved by the FDA called atezolizumab (brand name Tecentriq) that boosts the immune system to slow the spread of tumors in patients in the advanced stages of bladder cancer. It’s the latest development in immunotherapy for bladder cancer treatments and it has shown promising results.

In a study of 119 patients who received the drug as treatment revealed that growth stopped in the tumors in 24% of those patients in the advanced stages of bladder cancer. The drug also shrank the tumors by 30%. According to the research team, 21 of the original patients from 2014 who received the immunotherapy for bladder cancer are still in remission today.

Learn more about our non-toxic immunotherapy for bladder cancer by contacting Issels® Integrative Immuno-Oncology.