Condition
Bladder Cancer
Bladder cancer is a malignancy that arises in the lining of the bladder and is strongly linked to smoking and chemical carcinogen exposure.
Overview
Aetiology
Major risk factors for bladder cancer includes smoking, and carcinogenic metabolites of chemicals that are excreted and stored in the bladder such as aromatic amines.
Tumor begins in the bladder lining, and spreads through the connective tissue, muscle layer, fat, begins to spread locally and eventually metastisizes to other areas of the body such as the bone or brain.
Presentation
Complications
- Metastasis to bone
- Tumor invasion of contiguous viscera
Presentation
Symptoms
The most common symptom is painless blood in the urine (hematuria). As the disease progresses it may cause urinary frequency, urgency, pain or burning on urination, and pelvic or flank pain.
Assessment
Diagnostic Considerations
To confirm bladder cancer, cystoscopy and biopsy are required. Urine cytology and imaging may also be used to detect tumors and assess the extent of spread.
Assessment
Differential Diagnosis
- Urinary tract infection
- Bladder stones
- Benign prostatic hyperplasia
- Interstitial cystitis
- Renal or ureteric cancer
The Compounds
Research Compounds (6)
Individual molecules studied for bladder cancer. These are research findings, not supplements to take — each page states how far the evidence goes.
Arbutin
Hydroquinone glycoside
Arbutin — the hydroquinone glucoside defining bearberry (uva-ursi), also in pear and wheat. A tyrosinase-inhibiting skin-lightening agent with small human melasma trials (especially the more potent α-arbutin) and the traditional urinary antiseptic of bearberry — acting only after hydrolysis to free hydroquinone, the metabolite that also governs its safety.
Flavokawain A
Chalcone (flavokawain / 2'-hydroxychalcone)
Flavokawain A is the most abundant of kava's three flavokawain chalcones — a molecule with two faces: a genuinely promising pro-apoptotic anticancer chalcone in preclinical models (bladder, prostate and liver cancer), and, alongside flavokawain B, one of the constituents implicated in the question of kava-associated liver injury. All of its data are preclinical.
Hypericin
Naphthodianthrone (anthraquinone-derived pigment)
Hypericin is the red naphthodianthrone pigment of St. John's wort and the marker its extracts are standardised to — but not, on current evidence, the antidepressant. What it definitely is is an efficient photosensitiser: absorbing light and generating singlet oxygen, which explains livestock hypericism, the herb's photosensitivity caution, and its deliberate development as a photodynamic cancer therapy and diagnostic dye.
Isorhamnetin
Flavonol (O-methylated)
Isorhamnetin is the 3′-O-methyl ether of quercetin — a dietary flavonol that is also a major in-vivo metabolite of quercetin and rutin in humans, so part of what quercetin "does" may actually run through isorhamnetin. It is the signature flavonol of sea-buckthorn fruit and a principal flavonol of Ginkgo leaf. Methylation gives it somewhat better membrane permeability than quercetin, but oral bioavailability is still limited and every application signal — cardiovascular, anti-inflammatory, metabolic, hepatoprotective, anticancer — is preclinical, with no isolated-molecule human trial.
Licochalcone B
Retrochalcone (prenylated chalcone)
Licochalcone B is a prenylated retrochalcone from licorice (Glycyrrhiza) and a sibling of licochalcone A, distinguished by one striking, well-defined mechanism: it is a selective NLRP3-inflammasome inhibitor that works by disrupting the NEK7–NLRP3 interaction. Its wider antioxidant, antitumour, hepatoprotective and anti-fibrotic profile is real but almost entirely preclinical.
Taraxasterol
Triterpene (taraxastane-type)
Taraxasterol is a taraxastane-type pentacyclic triterpene of dandelion and other Asteraceae, with a coherent preclinical anti-inflammatory literature (NF-κB/MAPK suppression across arthritis, colitis, lung-injury and dermatitis models) but no human trials; as a highly lipophilic triterpene its poor oral bioavailability is a key limitation.