A community study of bladder cancer screening by the detection of occult urinary bleeding.

A possible method of improving the prognosis of bladder cancer may be the widespread introduction of screening. We investigated the ability of urine dipsticks to detect early bladder cancer in a group of men in the community. In 2,356 men more than 60 years old the urine was tested with a dipstick for the presence of blood. The subjects then tested their own urine on 10 subsequent occasions. Of the men 474 (20%) had dipstick hematuria and 319 agreed to undergo urological investigation. An asymptomatic bladder tumor was found in 17 men, associated in 10 with abnormal urine cytological findings. Urine dipsticks for the detection of red cells provided an inexpensive, simple and acceptable screening test for bladder cancer. However, introduction of generalized population screening by this method would produce large numbers requiring investigation. Combining urine cytology with dipstick hematuria results may provide a realistic alternative and further evaluation of the effectiveness of screening for bladder cancer in the community is required.