Does Pain In Lower Groin And Back Be Symptoms Of Bladder Tumor?

Posted on Mon, 27 Jan 2014

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Mon, 27 Jan 2014 Answered on

Mon, 17 Feb 2014 Last reviewed on

Question : Three years ago, I spent the summer with chronic symptoms of bladder infection with no infection. It turned out that gardnella and e-coli was the culprit. Last January, they found microscopic hematuria in my urine. A couple of more occurances over the last year and recently the same thing was discovered. In the last three months, I have had pain in my lower groin and back, much like that of a kidney stone. I took bactrim and it appeared to reduce, but has come back. I had a cat scan done of my abdomen and no masses. I realize kidney cancer might be the cause or it could be the e coli again. nothing showed up in my urine sample, but in my previous bout, they had to do indepth pelvic and urethral cultures. If I have kidney cancer, would it show up on the cat scan after a year? If it is e coli, could it have been so asymptomatic with the hematuria for over a year? Should one round of bactrim for ten days have killed the e-coli.

Answered by Dr. G.Srinivasan (5 hours later)

Brief Answer: Need to rule out bladder tumor Detailed Answer: welcome to the forum. I went through your detailed history, With bladder symptoms that you have, i would rather rule out bladder cancer rather than kidney cancer, especially as the CT scan is normal. At your age, recurrent UTI is common. I would do the following things in your case---- 1. Perform residual urine by ultrasound scan. If the residual urine is high, dilate the urethra and at the same time , do cystoscopy to see if there is bladder tumour. 2. If no specific cause is found for the recurrent infection, i would keep you on 3 to 6 months of low dose antibiotics- called low dose chemo prophylaxis. So,specific answers to your questions are----- 1. I need to re out bladder tumour rather than kidney tumour. 2. Bactrim for ten days may not be enough. 3. Hematuria can persist or recur over one year. Hope this advice helps, Truly,

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar