What are the stages of bladder cancer?

What are the stages of bladder cancer?

Bladder cancer can be either early stage (confined to the lining of the bladder) or invasive (penetrating the bladder wall and possibly spreading to nearby organs or lymph nodes).

The stages range from TA (confined to the internal lining of the bladder) to IV (most invasive). In the earliest stages (TA, T1 or CIS), the cancer is confined to the lining of the bladder or in the connective tissue just below the lining, but has not invaded into the main muscle wall of the bladder.

Stages II to IV denote invasive cancer:

• In Stage II, cancer has spread to the muscle wall of the bladder.
• In Stage III, the cancer has spread to the fatty tissue outside the bladder muscle.
• In Stage IV, the cancer has metastasized from the bladder to the lymph nodes or to other organs or bones.

A more sophisticated and preferred staging system is known as TNM, which stands for tumor, node involvement and metastases. In this system:

• Invasive bladder tumors can range from T2 (spread to the main muscle wall below the lining) all the way to T4 (tumor spreads beyond the bladder to nearby organs or the pelvic side wall).
• Lymph node involvement ranges from N0 (no cancer in lymph nodes) to N3 (cancer in many lymph nodes, or in one or more bulky lymph nodes larger than 5 cm).
• M0 means that there is no metastasis outside of the pelvis. M1 means that it has metastasized outside of the pelvis.