[Follow up of urinary bladder cancer--a task for the urology nurse?].

The introduction of the flexible cystoscope has simplified the examination for both the patient and the examiner. With an attached video camera to the cystoscope it showed that the assistent nurse fastly learned to interpret any finding in the bladder. In an article from England it was shown that a trained nurse cystoscopist had the same accuracy in detecting bladder tumors as a consultant urologist. The present study addresses the question if the same is valid in our department. After a period of training we started the study. 50 consecutive patients with known bladder cancer were first examined by the nurse who recorded any relapses of bladder tumor. Then the urologist examined the bladder unaware of the nurse's finding. Any discrepancy was reexamined together. 23 relapse cases of tumor were found, all which were diagnosed by the nurse. The urologist was un-able to detect 2 small grade 1 tumors. The result strengthened us to initiate a nurse-led follow up of patients with known bladder tumor. Until now about 100 cystoscopies have been done by a nurse with only good experience.