Bladder cancer usually takes a long time to develop and it is most common in
older people.

Doctors around the world looked into whether testing for blood in the urine would
be a reliable test for people at a higher risk of bladder cancer. This involves
dipping a testing stick into a fresh sample of your urine.

Doctors are also looking at urine tests to diagnose bladder cancer, such as
  â€¢ NMP22 test
  â€¢ MCM5 test.

Your doctor will then arrange for you to have one or more of the following tests.

Cystoscopy- Looking inside your bladder (cystoscopy), this is the most important test
for diagnosing cancer of the bladder. It means putting a thin tube with a light inside
your bladder. The tube has fibre optic cables inside it. These allow your doctor to
see inside your bladder. You can have this test done under local or general anaesthetic.
During cystoscopy under local anaesthetic, your doctor will only examine the bladder.
If you need tissue samples taken, you will need a cystoscopy under general anaesthetic.

Here you see cystoscopy

Other tests are:

Ultrasound of the urinary tract-An ultrasound scan test uses a microphone to bounce sound
waves off body structures and build up a picture. Liver ultrasound scans are used to check
for cancer spread to the liver. Ultrasound scans can check for blockages in the tubes that
move urine between the kidney and bladder (the ureters). Doppler ultrasound, which uses colour
pictures, can show the blood flow into the kidneys and urine flow into the bladder.

Intravenous urogram (IVU)-An intravenous urogram (IVU) is also sometimes called an intravenous
pyelogram (IVP). It is a general X-ray examination to look at the whole of your urinary system.
You may have this test to see what is causing your symptoms. If you are having the test after
you've had a cancer diagnosis, this is to make sure the rest of your urinary tract is healthy.

CT scan of your urinary tract-In some hospitals you may have a special computerised tomography
(CT) scan called a CT urogram. This scan is to make sure that any blood in your urine is coming
from the bladder and nowhere else in your urinary tract. The scanner creates computerised, three
dimensional pictures that allow your doctor to see the whole urinary tract clearly. Before the
test you may have a drug called furosemide to make you produce more urine and give better
pictures of the kidneys.

If you have invasive bladder cancer, your specialist will want you to have one or more of the
tests below tests to check whether the cancer has spread into nearby lymph nodes or other
organs close to the bladder.
  â€¢ CT scan
  â€¢ MRI scan
  â€¢ PET scan.