A majority of patients with bladder cancer have a delay in diagnosis because of a lack of urgency in urologic evaluation for hematuria, according to an editorial published in the January 1 issue of Cancer.
Although blood in the urine is often a sign of a urinary tract infection, "it's crucial for doctors to consider bladder cancer as a potential cause right from the start," said Edward Messing, MD, from the University of Rochester Medical Center, in New York, one of the authors of a study published in the same issue.