WAMU: The Diane Rehm Show Podcast : NPR Podcasts

WAMU: The Diane Rehm Show Podcast : NPR Podcasts

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2nd August 2010 - Bladder Cancer. This is a podcast and is about an hour long. It is very interesting stuff and highlights one of the key things about bladder cancer - that is the sheer cost of treatment and its recurrence rates. Some very interesting points here for the US audience and here in Europe too.

I have been trying to explain how different bladder cancer is to people for a long time, about the long term follow up work and the high levels of recurrence but with the frequency of follow up and the slow growing nature - they are able to give us BC survivors a good prognosis. There are still further treatments and things they can do in the future should I get another recurrence. More treatment, surgery and even more radical things can be done to prolong my life.

It was also interesting to hear that as this is the 5th most prevalent cancer in the US and the 4th here in the UK how little attention or funding it gets. Is this because it is a "below the belt" cancer?? Given how much it costs the NHS here in the UK (paid for by our national insurance scheme) and individual's insurance in the US you would have thought there were some long term financial gains to be made by advancing the research into Bladder Cancer.

One of the panellists has been checked for 30 years (she is only 50) and it could be much much longer of course. Imagine if you will what sort of costs that is for a theatre, all the laundry, personnel, doctor, heating, lighting etc and all the drugs and stuff - then multiply that by 30 and you can see quite how expensive it is.

Interesting stuff I think you'll find.