Blood in Urine – Risk Factors

Transcript

Microscopic blood in the urine is not evaluated the same way in every patient. The doctor will assess your risk factors. The risk factors are a combination of your age, your smoking history, your family history of urologic cancers, that’s cancers in the urinary tract. Whether you’ve had blood in the urine before that’s been evaluated, and the number of blood cells that are seen in the urine specimen. In a non-risky situation, for example, a very young patient who never smoked, the evaluation might be simply to repeat the urine test at a later date. In a more risky situation, a complete evaluation is a CAT scan of the kidneys, a urine test to look for cancer cells, and a camera test to look at the inside of the bladder with a camera called a cystoscopy will be performed. So the approach is called risk stratified. It’s not the same for every patient and your doctor will determine the most beneficial approach for your specific situation.