[Cancer of the bladder in a patient with spinal cord injury].

A case of cancer of urinary bladder in a 39-year-old incomplete C7 paraplegic male is reported. He was injured in 1962, and was admitted to our department in August, 1982 because of macrohematuria. Intravenous pyelography showed dilation of right ureter and pelvis. Cystography revealed filling defect on the right wall of bladder, but vesicoureteral reflux was not seen. Endoscopically, we found the tumor on the right wall, which seemed to invade to the trigone and right ureteral orifice. CT scan and pelvic angiography showed that the tumor extended extramurally of the bladder and metastasized to lymph-nodes. In November, 1982, bilateral ureterocutaneostomy, and 30 days later, total cystectomy were performed. The removed bladder demonstrated transitional cell carcinoma with undifferentiated tumor cells. The patient died of recurrence of the tumor in the small pelvic cavity, 60 days later. Ten cases of bladder cancer in patients with spinal cord injury were collected from Japanese literature including ours, and the importance of periodic cytology, cystoscopy and random biopsy for early diagnosis of bladder cancer on paraplegics were discussed.