DEAR DR. ROACH: Recently, to my surprise, I came down with bladder cancer. I am a healthy 66-year-old man who is 5 feet, 11 inches tall, 215 pounds, and a lifelong nonsmoker. I drink a few beers monthly and don’t take any meds.

It was very surprising that what was thought to be kidney stones came back as papillary noninvasive bladder cancer. They removed a Ta-T1 tumor that was less than 3 cm from the top of my bladder. I have recently started BCG (Bacillus Calmett-Guerin) treatments.

Until now, I hadn’t heard of bladder cancer; I was stunned to realize it’s the fourth most common cancer and can be fatal if it isn’t caught as early as mine was. Could you please explain this very common and deadly cancer? — T.S.

ANSWER: Bladder cancer is actually the 10th most common cancer worldwide bu

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