[Outpatient treatment of bladder cancer--lower cost and satisfied patients]

Transurethral resection of bladder tumours and recurrences accounts for a substantial part of the workload at a urology unit. With the aim of reducing costs, since 1992 we have performed transurethral resection as an out-patient procedure if possible. Transurethral resection as day surgery in selected patients has been enabled by the use of extirpation and fulguration under cover of intravesical lignocaine (lidocaine) anaesthesia or submucosal lignocaine injection. Before the introduction of the out-patient treatment policy, around 270 transurethral resections of bladder tumours were performed annually at a cost of SEK 5.7 million. During 1994 and 1995, almost half of the procedures could be performed in an out-patient setting, with minimal complications and a very high level of patient acceptance, the respective reductions in costs being SEK 2.4 million and SEK 3.2 million.