Prevention of Urinary Bladder Cancer - The Trail Less Trodden

Abstract

Though the pathogenesis of urinary bladder cancer is now well known, the exact aetiology of this disease is still in darkness. The advances in the management of bladder cancer have focused only on early identification and treatment of the illness since stage of disease at the time of diagnosis is a critical factor determining the outcome of treatment. Though primary chemoprevention of any disease aims at decreasing the incidence, secondary objectives like reducing treatment-related adverse events, cutting down the cost of treatment and bringing down the mortality due to the disease are also of concern. Chemoprevention of bladder cancer is a path less trodden. The primary reason for this lacunae has been the lack of identification of specific agents useful for this purpose. This article reviews the experimental and epidemiological data available from 1998 to 2024 on the effectiveness and safety of various nutritional and other agents proposed to be useful for bladder cancer chemoprevention to reduce the incidence of this cancer and/or slow down the disease progression. The results of the review show that no single agent has been categorically proved to be the best for chemoprevention of bladder cancer as of now. It may be ideal for patients who are at higher risk of contracting bladder cancer to adopt feasible chemopreventive measures which could potentially retard the onset or further course of disease including life style modifications and quitting smoking habits.