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For three decades, the treatment of bladder cancer stood still. There were no new drugs and no improvements in diagnosis or survival rates. But all of that has changed, and now people with the disease and researchers have more options and hope. This Outlook discusses topics such as: how checkpoint-inhibitor drugs are helping those affected to survive for longer; why a healthy bladder is not sterile; and how the genetics of bladder cancer is revealing some surprising connections.
This Nature Outlook is editorially independent. It is produced with third party financial support. About this content.
The diagnostics, treatment and five-year survival rates for bladder cancer are largely unchanged since the 1990s. Research into cancer genomics, risk factors and immune therapies could hold the key to progress against this malignant disease.
Mechele Leon, an associate professor of theatre at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, was diagnosed with bladder cancer in March 2016. After treatment, Leon was left with no bladder, a urostomy bag, and a story to tell — which became a one-woman play called Bladder Interrupted.