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Half of all bladder cancers are blamed on tobacco smoking. If you have been or still are a smoker, your risk for bladder cancer is high and will continue for 10 years after you quit. Another 25 percent of cases, mostly in men, appear to be caused by industrial exposure to aromatic polycyclic hydrocarbons or polychlorinated biphenyls such as 2-naphtylamine, 4-aminobiphenyl and benzidine. Workers in leather, metal, rubber and textiles, painters and hairdressers may find these chemicals in their environment. Chronic exposure to chimney soot also causes several kinds of cancer. Risk factors also include chronic infections and bladder stones.
If you are a woman who has been treated with radiation for cervical or ovarian cancer or a man who has been treated with radiation for prostate cancer, you have a significantly greater risk of developing bladder cancer.
Cyclophosphamide (Cytoxan®) is a drug used to treat cancer and several other diseases that involve the immune system, one of them being Wegener's Granulomatosis. If you have to be on this drug for any period of time, periodic screening for bladder cancer is a must.
Bilharzia, an infection with the parasite Schistosoma haematobium, occurs in most of Africa and the Middle East. To get bilharzia (or schistosomiasis), you must be exposed to fresh water that contains a particular type of snail, where the schistosomes spend part of their lifecycle. Lake Malawi in East Africa is a well-known reservoir for this parasite.
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External Source
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Dollinger M, Rosenbaum, EH, Tempero M., et al. Everyone's Guide to Cancer Therapy, Fourth Edition, Kansas City, Missouri: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2002.
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This article was reviewed and updated June 2007.
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