The Connection Between Smoking and Urothelial Bladder Cancer

Each year, almost 20,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with urothelial bladder cancer (UBC). UBC is a disease usually associated with aging because it takes years for the cancer to develop, according to Heather Mannuel, M.D., a medical oncologist at the University of Maryland Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center. But smoking is a major risk factor for this type of cancer, accounting for between 50% to 65% of new cases. And people who currently smoke are four times more likely to develop UBC than someone who never has. ​The relationship between smoking and UBCSeveral decades ago, U