Hematuria is a very common clinical sign and there are many causes including feline idiopathic cystitis, bacterial cystitis, bladder stones🪨, bladder mass etc. Urinalysis and imaging🔬🩻 (X-ray and ultrasound) are essential diagnostic tools to differentiate them. Unfortunately for this patient, there is a bladder mass at the bladder trigone. Traumatic catheterization was then performed to collect cytology sample🔬. Cytology reveals anisocytosis (variation of cell size) and anisokaryosis (variation of nuclear size) with some cells that are multinucleated. Diagnosis of transitional cell carcinoma (TCC) was made
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TCC is most commonly located in the trigone and often extends into the urethra. Surgical resection is rarely warranted as a sole treatment due to the location of the tumor. There are few medical treatment which can prolong median survival time (MST) for the patients. These treatments include chemotherapy, NSAIDS and Tyrosine kinase inhibitors (eg Palladia). 💊