How long can a person live with bladder cancer?

The survival time of patients with bladder cancer is influenced by multiple factors, including tumor stage, cell differentiation grade, treatment method, and individual patient differences, among others. Specifically:

1. Patients diagnosed at an early stage and treated promptly may have a 5-year survival rate as high as 90% or more.

2. Intermediate and advanced stages of bladder cancer: Survival time for intermediate and advanced bladder cancer is relatively short, generally 2–3 years, or even shorter. Particularly for stage IV bladder cancer, the 5-year survival rate is typically less than 30%.

3. Cell differentiation grade: For patients with stage T1 or T2 tumors and grade I cell differentiation, the 5-year survival rate exceeds 80%. However, high-grade and highly invasive bladder cancers have a poorer prognosis.

4. Treatment method: Bladder cancer is divided into two major categories—non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) and muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC). Following standard treatment, such as transurethral resection of bladder tumor (TURBT) combined with intravesical chemotherapy or immunotherapy, most NMIBC patients can survive for extended periods. In contrast, MIBC patients require other treatment approaches, such as radical cystectomy combined with adjuvant chemotherapy, or neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by surgery, to improve survival rates.