ANP Productions | Bron: ANP
Rotterdam
Bladder cancer is too often mistaken for chronic cystitis in women. As a result, they do not receive specialist help as quickly as they should. That is what urologists Tahlita Zuiverloon and Joost Boormans of the Erasmus MC Cancer Institute say in the run-up to the Bladder Cancer Awareness Month. Bladder cancer affects 7,000 Dutch people every year, a quarter of whom are women.
“At my consultation hours, I often see women between the ages of 60 and 70 who urinate blood and who have taken long-term antibiotics because they were suspected of having a bladder infection. Valuable time is lost in this way: the tumor is sometimes already advanced, making treatment more difficult,” warns Zuiverloon .
An important first signal of bladder cancer is blood in the urine. “Urine from a bladder cancer patient resembles Roosvicee or red wine,” says Boormans. “A quarter of people who pee blood have urinary tract cancer.”
According to doctors, bladder cancer is number 5 on the list of most common cancers. A majority of 60 percent of patients have smoked or are still smoking.