[Indication for the surgical treatment of bladder tumors (based on 10-year statistics)]

On the basis of statistics collected over ten years, indications for the surgical treatment of bladder tumors are arrived at. The scopes of the individual surgical approaches, such as transurethral resection and partial and total cystectomy, are discussed. If the preoperative diagnosis indicates a carcinoma that has infiltrated the musculature, it would be disastrous to let the most favorable time for cure slip by while treating with palliative measures a carcinoma that otherwise could have been definitively cured. On no account should a cystectomy represent the last, desperate attempt at therapy when all other measures have failed.